AR01055_EMAP_Gazetteer_of_Sites_4-2_10.pdf - The Heritage ...

Cork
Ballyvourney, ‘St. Gobnet’s House’ (Glebe td.), Co. Cork
Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Settlement
Grid Ref: W19757684 (119751/076844)
SMR No: CO058-034001
Excavation Licence: N/A
Excavation Duration/Year: June - August 1951
Site Director: M.J. O’Kelly (University College Cork)
St. Gobnet’s House, a circular stone structure to the west of a medieval church site situated
on a level area on a hillside, was excavated over the course of eight weeks between June and
August 1951. The excavation was financed by means of a Special Employment Scheme and
administered through the Commissioners of Public Works and the Royal Irish Academy.
The excavation revealed two phases of occupation with little or no interval between them
(Fig. 61). The earlier phase is associated with a wooden rectangular house (or houses)
defined by several large postholes. A number of pits containing lumps of slag and furnace
bottoms were found inside the floor plan of this structure; a hollow, filled with habitation
refuse and clusters of large stone, also belonged to this phase. An elaborate system of stonelined
drains and trenches were also constructed to trap and draw off surface water coming
down from a hill rising to the north and north-west of the site.
The wooden structure was subsequently removed and replaced by the round stone building
after the level of the ground was first raised by the laying down of a charcoal-rich soil deposit
(0.15m thick). One pit found inside the south wall of the stone round house belonged to the
early phase of occupation. This appeared to have been in use during the laying down of the
levelling-deposit, suggesting that there was little or no interval between the abandonment of
the primary structure and the construction of the secondary stone building.
The round stone building had a floor diameter of 6.1m. Its walls averaged 1.5m thick at the
base and contained an inner and outer face with a rubble core. A central post in the centre of
the structure supported the roof while two smaller posts set at the inner edges of the
entrance jamb slabs evidently formed part of a frame for a wooden door. A well was
excavated 1.8m outside the roundhouse door and consisted of a circular hole, 0.45m in
diameter and dug to a depth of 0.75m in the soil.
The second phase was particularly associated with iron and metalworking. A hearth and
several pits rich in charcoal, lumps of slag and potential furnace bottoms were excavated in
the interior of the round house and were used also probably in connection with iron smelting.
Numerous postholes of various sizes were excavated between and around the pits and may
have held short stakes to support some form of structures associated with the iron smelting
process. Two crucible fragments containing traces of bronze indicate that a small amount of
bronze-working was also undertaken on site.
A blue glass bead and possibly an iron spearhead, and an iron brad belong to the primary
period of occupation. The finds from the round house stratum consisted of two crucibles, two
short lengths of bronze wire, three fragments of a jet bracelet, five iron knives, two ferrules,
several corroded iron nails, a brad, a spindle whorl, four shale discs, seventeen whetstones,
two spherical stones and flint and chert cores. The site also produced a large quantity of iron
slag, 57 furnace bottoms and fragments of 80 others, clay furnace covers and a small
fragment of a possible tuyère, although these may belong to the primary phase. Animal bone
was poorly preserved due to the acidic nature of the soil but the meagre evidence appeared
to belong to sheep and cattle.
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