COUNTY WATERFORD.

Fig. 212.—Plan of Submarine Crannog at Ardmore. One-half the scale of [fig. 213].

Ardmore Bay.—Here, in the year 1879, a submarine crannog was discovered on the shore under high water-mark, where a small stream runs into the sea between Ardmore chapel and the old coastguard houses; this little stream described a semicircle around the crannog at low water, but at high water all was submerged; a bank of shingle had covered it in whole or in part, but the rapid denudation going on from the action of the sea had removed the shingle and is wearing down the bed of turf, so that it is quite possible no remains of the crannog may be left. Its greatest diameter was from ninety-two to one hundred feet: the turf was over nine feet deep where the piles were driven in; these were of oak, rudely pointed and forming a double enceinte—irregularly oval in shape—of which the inner row of piles generally sloped slightly inwards, and those of the outer row—closer together and more numerous than the inner—sloped outwards. In many cases they stood above the turf, and were for the most part large—as thick as a man’s thigh. Several smaller piles were in the S.E. quarter of the crannog, probably the remains of wattled partitions. To the N.E. the sea denudation had been very great, and there, at the surface, were found many roots of bog-timber, similar to those which near the centre of the crannog lay more than two feet below the level of the solid peat.

SECTION INSIDE EAST MARGIN OF CRANNOG.

ft.in.
8. Peat,}10
7. Thin stratum of bluish clay with worn pebbles,
6. Peat,}10
5. Thin stratum of bluish clay and an angular piece of limestone,
4. Thin stratum of charcoal,
3. Peat,20
2. Clayey peat,30
1. Very clayey peat full of small oak roots,06
———
76

Fig. 213.—Section of Submarine Crannog at Ardmore.[238]