During archaeological work in advance of the Ashbourne Town Centre Development in 2004, on behalf of Naus Investments, a small, partially enclosed medieval farmstead was identified and excavated (for more in-depth analysis of the findings see Frazer, forthcoming).
The farmstead was situated immediately upslope from a medieval millrace earthwork and three associated small banked fields that were once fed by the millrace and emptied into the nearby Broadmeadow River.
The site is some seventy metres distant from the recently-discovered sixteenth–seventeenth-century settlement of Killegland (Frazer 2007), and approximately 100m from Killegland Castle across the river (RMP ME045:005). The farmstead, occupied between the late twelfth and fourteenth centuries, was approximately square in plan and about twenty to twenty-five metres on each side, and was demarcated on its western and northern sides by backfilled ‘soakaway’ drains that were metalled over with small stones to serve as pathways, and by the millrace on its southern side.
The inhabitation of the site occurred in two separate, consecutive phases, with little surviving of two or three buildings from the first phase (Structure 1, early Structure 3, possible early Structure 2). The second, main phase included a central, north–south orientated, sub-rectangular house (5.5m x 11m?; Structure 3) of non-earthfast, drystone foundations and, probably, clay walls and thatched roof. Two other structures, one re-used from the earlier occupation (Structure 1) and one built slightly later over the top of the northern soakaway drain (Structure 2) were of similar vernacular builds. The site was abandoned by the fifteenth century, and was later robbed of stone and covered over with hand-dug cultivation drills (‘lazy-beds’) in the sixteenth/seventeenth century. Animal bone, over thirty metal artefacts and approximately 600 sherds of pottery were recovered during the excavation, including a near-complete example of a Leinster cooking ware jar.
Broader implications It is tempting to see the farmstead as some of the elusive archaeological evidence for Anglo-Norman free tenants that some scholars believe were resident within manorial boundaries, but away from manorial centres or seats (O’Conor 1998: 57–69; Edwards et al. 1983; Simms 1988a, 1988b; perhaps it was even the residence of one ‘Hugo the miller’ mentioned in contemporary documents). The nature of the site’s plan, and the methods of construction of its buildings (see O’Conor 1998: 41–71; Barry 2000; Foley 1989; Ó Ríordáin and Hunt 1942), do not disagree with this theory. Apparently contradictory evidence about the status/social location of the inhabitants—i.e. with spartan material culture, but not as spartan as we might expect for a peasant dwelling—might also be explained if the inhabitants were free tenants. Of course, the farmstead is not very distant from the suspected manorial seat at Killegland Castle. There is some evidence for the site of the unexcavated Killegland Castle existing as a manorial seat before the fifteenth century, after the abandonment of the farm, but it is not certain. The manor issue begs another question surrounding the nature of Anglo-Norman settlement: where does Killegland fit into a debate over the ‘deserted Norman rural-borough’ (Glasscock 1970: 170–1; Otway-Ruthven 1965; Graham 1974, 1985; Orpen 2005)? It possesses many attributes putatively associated with such a designation, but no nucleated settlement of that date. Further, there is no documentary identification of Killegland as anything other than a vill (and that only once; Gilbert 1889: 50). The medieval landscape that has been identified is one that contains a separate (dispersed?) farmstead (see Bradley 2000: esp. 288).
Dating evidence for the farmstead convincingly locates the main occupation in the late thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, and so it may represent part of a second wave of settlement characterised by ‘compact, consolidated holdings not unlike modern farms’ (O’Conor 1998: 69). The archaeology offered no obvious reason for the abandonment of the farmstead, such as evidence of violence or burning. The great importance of arable at this time is indicated in the environmental samples from the excavation, and perhaps also hinted at by the paucity of animal bone, but the evidence for medieval agricultural practice does not support or refute the presence of an (imported) ‘open field’ system. The documentary record, however, does indicate the organisation of agriculture in a manner akin to Norman practice in England, with stinting, or soum, rights on common pasture allocated according to the size of a tenant’s holdings. The holding in the written record, however, appears to be a consolidated one attached to a messuage rather than scattered strip ‘selions’ in an open field, and perhaps indicates a hybrid manorial organisation in which Anglo-Norman administration and manorial custom was overlain on an existing Irish landscape that, for arable-focused agriculture, required both land clearance and accommodation to existing boundaries.
References Barry, T.B. 2000. Excavations at Piperstown deserted medieval village, Co. Louth, 1987. PRIA 100C: 113–35. Bradley, J. 2000. Rural boroughs in medieval Ireland: nucleated or dispersed settlements? Ruralia 3: 288–93. Edwards, K.J., F.W. Hammond, A. Simms. 1983. The medieval settlement of Newcastle Lyons, Co. Dublin: and interdisciplinary approach. PRIA 83C: 251–76. Foley, C. 1989. Excavations at a medieval settlement site in Jerpointchurch townland, Co. Kilkenny. PRIA 89C: 71–126. Frazer, W.O. forthcoming [submitted 2005]. A medieval farmstead at Killegland, Ashbourne, Co. Meath. In Medieval Rural Settlement in Ireland (C. Corlett and M. Potterton, eds). Frazer, W.O. 2007. Field of Fire: Evidence for wartime conflict in a 17th-century cottier settlement in County Meath, Ireland. Journal of Conflict Archaeology 3(1): 173–96. Gilbert, J.T. 1889. Register of the Abbey of St. Thomas. Dublin. Glasscock, R.E. 1970. Moated sites and deserted villages and boroughs: Two neglected aspects of Anglo-Norman settlement in Ireland. In Irish Gographical Studies in Honour of E. Estyn Evans (R.E. Glasscock and N. Stephens, eds). Belfast, pp 162–77. Graham, B. 1974. Medieval settlements in County Meath. Ríocht na Mídhe 5: 40–59. Graham, B. 1985. Anglo-Norman manorial settlement in Ireland: an assessment. Irish Geography 18: 4–15. O’Conor, K.D. 1998. The Archaeology of Medieval Rural Settlement in Ireland. Dublin: RIA, Discovery Programme Monograph 3. Ó Ríordáin, S.P. and J. Hunt. 1942. Medieval dwellings at Caherguillamore, County Limerick. JRSAI 72: 37–63. Orpen, G.H. 2005 [new intro. by S. Duffy, reprint of 4 vols of 1911, 1920]. Ireland Under the Normans. Dublin: Four Courts. Otway-Ruthven, A.J. 1965. The character of Norman settlement in Ireland. Historical Studies 5: 75–84. Simms, A. 1988a. The geography of Irish manors: the example of the Llanthony cells of Duleek and Colp in County Meath. In Settlement and Society in Medieval Ireland: Studies Presented to F.X. Martin (J. Bradley, ed.). Kilkenny: Boethius, pp 291–326. Simms, A. 1988b. Core and periphery in medieval Europe: the Irish experience in a wider context. In Common Ground: Essays on the Historical Geography of Ireland, Presented to T. Jones Hughes (W.J. Smith and K Whelan, eds). Cork: Cork University Press. pp 22–40.
Dating evidence for the farmstead convincingly locates the main occupation in the late thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, and so it may represent part of a second wave of settlement characterised by ‘compact, consolidated holdings not unlike modern farms’ (O’Conor 1998: 69). The archaeology offered no obvious reason for the abandonment of the farmstead, such as evidence of violence or burning. The great importance of arable at this time is indicated in the environmental samples from the excavation, and perhaps also hinted at by the paucity of animal bone, but the evidence for medieval agricultural practice does not support or refute the presence of an (imported) ‘open field’ system. The documentary record, however, does indicate the organisation of agriculture in a manner akin to Norman practice in England, with stinting, or soum, rights on common pasture allocated according to the size of a tenant’s holdings. The holding in the written record, however, appears to be a consolidated one attached to a messuage rather than scattered strip ‘selions’ in an open field, and perhaps indicates a hybrid manorial organisation in which Anglo-Norman administration and manorial custom was overlain on an existing Irish landscape that, for arable-focused agriculture, required both land clearance and accommodation to existing boundaries.