Hut site, Brusselstown, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Settlement Sites

Hut site, Brusselstown, Co. Wicklow

On an east-facing slope of Brusselstown Hill in County Wicklow, a rough circle of boulders marks out the footprint of a dwelling that has been quietly present in the landscape for centuries, probably longer.

The hut site measures roughly 6.7 metres north to south and 7.6 metres east to west, its outline defined not by cut stone or mortar but by the kind of large, unworked boulders that are common to this upland terrain. What makes it quietly compelling is not the structure in isolation but the company it keeps: another hut site sits only about eight metres to the north, and the ground immediately to the west rises to a higher terrace, lending the spot a sheltered, deliberate quality.

The site lies within a much larger prehistoric complex centred on Spinans Hill, of which the hillfort on Brusselstown Hill forms a part. A hillfort, in broad terms, is an enclosed settlement or defended area on elevated ground, typically bounded by earthen banks or stone ramparts. Here the rampart is of stone, and the hut site sits roughly 100 metres to the south-east of it, positioned just outside the main enclosure rather than within it. Running about 18 metres to the west of the hut, a boulder field boundary, double-walled in places and around 0.7 to 1 metre wide, traces a line roughly north-north-east to south-south-west. This boundary belongs to a wider field system associated with the Spinans Hill complex, suggesting that whatever community used these slopes was engaged in organised land management as well as settlement. The picture that emerges is of a working upland landscape, with enclosures, fields, and domestic structures laid out in relation to one another across the hillside.

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Pete F
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