EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Fermanagh
Coolcran, Co. Fermanagh
Early Medieval Settlement Enclosure.
Grid Ref: H36495002 (23649/35002)
SMR No: FER 194:006
Excavation Licence: N/A
Excavation Duration/Year: May – June 1983.
Site Directors: B.B. Williams (Historic Monuments and Buildings Branch, Department
of the Environment (NI)).
The site consisted of a low circular earthen platform (2m high and 43m in diameter) set on
the edge of a marshy valley. Excavation was necessitated due to a farm improvement
scheme.
Excavation revealed that the site had originally consisted of a univallate enclosure, just over
30m in diameter. A line of stakeholes under the bank of this enclosure suggest that this
settlement may have been preceded by a palisaded enclosure, which occupied a similar area.
The interior of the site had been badly damaged by post-medieval agricultural activity, and
only fragmentary structural features survived. These would appear to be from the later,
raised phase of the site. Three areas of cobbling survived (Fig. 132), and it has been
suggested that these may represent an external yard surface. Two fire-pits were interpreted
as potential domestic hearths, rather than furnace bottoms, because of the lack of
accompanying iron slag. There was, however, evidence for three furnaces nearby: one was
indicated by a concentration of charcoal, iron slag and a fragment of a tuyère; and another
one appears to have had an associated stake-built structure.
The most significant feature of this site was the discovery of the souterrain (Fig. 133). The
water-logged condition of the site meant the survival of almost 50 oak timbers which
supported the souterrain roof. A dark organic material, which ran around and between these
timbers, was interpreted as the remains of wattle walling. Dates from thirteen of the timbers
provided a felling date of A.D. 822±9 (suggesting that they were from the same tree) and,
therefore, that the structure was built in the 820s. The construction date of the souterrain
appears to have been contemporary with the raising of the mound on site.
Apart from the metalworking debris, the only find of note was a rotary quernstone.
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