Settlement deserted - medieval, Baronstown, Co. Westmeath

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Settlement Sites

Settlement deserted – medieval, Baronstown, Co. Westmeath

On the 1837 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, a field in Co. Westmeath is labelled plainly and with some finality: 'Site of Kilbixy Town'.

The label turns out to be in the wrong place. The actual physical remains of the medieval settlement, visible as earthworks of banks, scarps, and depressions, lie roughly 300 metres to the west, in a field that also contains St. Brigid's holy well. The cartographers knew something had been there; they just missed where it ended up.

Kilbixy was once far more than a name on a map. Aerial photographs taken by Cambridge University in 1966 reveal extensive earthwork remains, including two parallel banks that likely defined the layout of the old town. A 1972 site description noted the complexity of the earthworks and tentatively identified them as belonging to Kilbixy Town. The settlement did not stand alone: within a short radius, there is a motte and bailey to the north, a structure consisting of a raised earthen mound topped by a wooden or stone fortification and surrounded by an enclosed courtyard, suggesting Norman-period control of the area. To the east lie the sites of a medieval church, a medieval hospital, and a graveyard, a cluster that points to a settlement of some consequence. The field containing the earthworks is annotated on the 1837 map as 'Burgess Land', a term indicating land associated with the rights and obligations of a medieval borough, which raises the possibility that Kilbixy once held formal town status. By 2011, the earthworks remained visible on aerial photography, though the field originally labelled as the town site showed no comparable surface features at all.

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Pete F
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