The Furness Project

Introduction

The Furness Estate

Furness House is situated in the townland of Forenaghts Great, located on an elevated site north east of Naas town in County Kildare. The present house was built in the early 1730s by the Nevil family on the site of an earlier house located at the centre of a medieval townland and parish; as attested to by the medieval church on the grounds east of the house. The church contains a number of other antiquities, one of which is a curious carved stone. The lands within the present estate have seen human activity since the Neolithic period and a boulder containing Rock Art bears testimony to that fact. In addition, a Bronze Age enclosure lies to the north and contains a tall Standing Stone at its centre. This very impressive monument was apparently constructed to mark the burial place of just two individuals who were very likely members of the local Bronze Age elite. The “Longstone Rath”, as it has been known since the 19th century, has a commanding view over the northern end of Naas Town.

The main goal of this project was to make accessible ‘virtually’ via 3D technology, what is, like so many of our monuments, inaccessible due to being on private lands.

The data was captured over a weekend in Oct 2019, thanks to the kind permission of the landowner. The data was processed in Sept 2020. Thanks are also due to Brian McCabe for support in arranging the visit.

Four models were created from the image data and are presented here in chronological order of their respective eras:

1. The Neolithic Rock Art Boulder
2. The Furness Standing Stone (“The Longstone Rath”)
3. A partially carved large stone, possibly a grave slab, held within the church
4. Furness Church

Furness House

Forenaghts Great, Naas, Co. Kildare, Ireland

Enclosure KD019-077—-

In addition to the 3D project, at the bottom of the page are the details of a previously unrecorded enclosure that I discovered at Forenaghts Great utilising areal imagery.
This feature has now been added to the Records of Monuments and Places list maintained by the National Monuments Service.

Neolithic Rock Art

One of the oldest examples of human material culture in county Kildare.

Unearthed in 1975, the boulder was subsequently recognised as having cultural marking that were, on inspection by the National Monuments Service, classified as Rock Art. This resulted in the boulder being designated as a National Monument (KD019-024003- in the Record of Monuments and Places). It was dated by Elizabeth Shee to between 2000 – 1500 BC, therefore, Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. However, recent research suggests that quintessential rock art spans a period even earlier than thought before – from the Middle Neolithic to possibly the Early Bronze Age.


For more details, models and imagery go to: Furness Rock Art

The Longstone Rath

A Bronze Age standing stone and burial cist centred inside a large embanked enclosure overlooking Naas.

This stone, known as “The Longstone Rath”, due to its location in the centre of a large circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank (not modelled), is northeast of Naas at Forenaghts Great. An excavation in 1912 revealed a large rectangular cist with a cobbled floor, which contained the remains of two cremated adults; a male and possibly a female. It also revealed that the standing stone was set in a socket cut in the natural bedrock.

For more details go to: The Longstone Rath

Possible Grave Slab

A large granite slab with enigmatic carvings.

This recorded monument (KD019-024004-) was discovered in the churchyard of Furness Church in 1968 buried vertically with only a small portion protruding above the ground level. It is a rather unusual stone and is described in the Record of Monuments and Places notes as “A gently tapering granite slab (dims. L 1.62m; Wth 0.37-0.53m; T 0.22m) carries a broad shaft and transom of a cross carved in low relief, with the head of the cross formed by a circular disc from which an incised line runs down the centre of the shaft.”

For more details and another models go to: Furness Cross Slab

Furness Church

A small medieval parish church dating to circa 1200.

Furness church is a National Monument (KD019-024001-) in state care. The church, along with its tithes, was granted in 1210 to the Abbey of St. Thomas, in Dublin, by Richard de Lesse. The church has a chancel that some consider to be an addition to an earlier church, as it appears to be unbounded. However, the windows (which appear to have been restored) are of identical structure in both chancel and nave and the chancel arch shows no sign of being a new opening. The window style would suggest a date ranging from the 12th to early 13th century, with the putlog construction holes pointing towards the latter. It has, therefore, been dated to circa 1200, and is thought to be an early parish church, possibly Norman, but also possibly built on the site of a pre-Norman church. Entry is through two round arched doors of cut tufa surround, placed in the north and south nave walls. Also of tufa is the simple but finely cut arch that opens into the chancel from the nave.

Furness Church

View from the south

Model of Furness Medieval Church (c.1200) from the Photogrammetry data.

Furness Church

Interior

Interior view of Furness Medieval Church (c.1200) showing the nave and chancel arch from the Photogrammetry Model

Furness Church

Plan

Orthographic plan of Furness Medieval Church (c.1200) from the Photogrammetry Model

Newly Discovered Enclosure

Areal archaeology reveals a new previously unknown enclosure in Forenaghts Great.

This unrecorded enclosure was discovered in November 2018 using Google Earth imagery. It was reported to the National Monuments Service in March 2019. It was allocated monument number KD019-077—- and classed as an enclosure. Very faint on the Google Earth imagery, follow up research of the location was later carried out using LiDAR imagery (provided online by the OPW). The enclosure is clearly visible in the LiDAR imagery.

For more details see: Furness Enclosure

For more potential archaeological sites I’ve discovered using Google Earth imagery or LiDAR imagery see: Aerial Archaeology

Image above contains Irish Public Sector Data (Geological Survey) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence