Kiln, Farrankelly, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Kilns

Kiln, Farrankelly, Co. Wicklow

When a housing development began at Farrankelly in County Wicklow, what lay beneath the topsoil turned out to be considerably more interesting than the foundations being poured above it.

Ground that had shown only as faint crop marks on aerial imagery revealed, once excavated, a complex of late prehistoric features: a large enclosure, cremation burials, ring-ditches, and at the centre of it all, a substantial stone-lined kiln whose walls still bore the scorching of intense, repeated heat.

The site first came to attention through a geophysical survey carried out by Joanna Leigh in 2015, which identified two circular ditch-type anomalies measuring approximately 11.25 and 12.25 metres in diameter, apparently contained within a larger, plectrum-shaped enclosure. Testing followed in 2017 by Rob Lynch and Enda Lydon of IAC Archaeology, and full excavation was undertaken in 2020 by Muireann Ní Cheallacháin, also of IAC, during the construction phase of a residential development by Cairn Homes. The remains are thought to be Bronze Age in date. The kiln itself, designated C484 in the excavation record, was oriented northeast to southwest, with an elevated firing chamber at the southwest end and a lower drying chamber at the northeast, a layout that used gravity to draw heat through the structure. Three un-mortared courses of large boulders survived in the circular firing chamber, and a stone baffle separated the flue from the drying chamber. The degree of heat damage to the stone lining suggested either very high temperatures or prolonged use over time. A charcoal and ash deposit in the flue may represent a final raking out of the hearth. Stone tools, including hones and hammerstones, were recovered from the backfill, and a large pit abutting the kiln to the west, much of whose rubble was also heat-affected, appears to have been part of the same industrial activity. The flat cemetery and token cremation burial pits found nearby place this working site within a broader landscape that was clearly used, and remembered, across generations.

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