Hut site, Brusselstown, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Settlement Sites

Hut site, Brusselstown, Co. Wicklow

Just outside the perimeter of one of Wicklow's most substantial prehistoric hillforts, a low ring of boulders marks out a space where someone once lived, or sheltered, or worked.

The structure sits on a south-facing slope roughly forty metres southeast of the centre of Brusselstown hillfort, and its dimensions are modest but deliberate: an oval platform measuring around eight by nine metres overall, with an interior diameter of approximately five and a half metres north to south and seven and a half metres east to west. The floor has been levelled into the hillside, sitting about forty centimetres below the ground surface to the north and dropping nearly half a metre to the exterior on the south side. A possible entrance, roughly two metres wide, faces southeast, which would have caught the morning light.

The boundary of the platform is formed mostly by boulders, some of them now grass-covered, with a slight eroded bank surviving in the southern quadrant, still about thirteen centimetres high and a metre wide, with boulders set along its outer face. A smaller circular platform, around six metres in diameter, adjoins the main structure. Taken together, these features are consistent with a prehistoric hut site, a term used for the levelled, boulder-defined floors that once supported timber or wattle superstructures, now long gone. Their proximity to Brusselstown hillfort, a large enclosure whose origins likely reach back into the Iron Age or earlier, suggests this was not an isolated dwelling but part of a broader pattern of settlement and activity clustered around the fort.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Hut site, Brusselstown, Co. Wicklow. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement