County: Louth Site name: DROGHEDA: Bessexwell Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0030
Author: Kieran Campbell
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 709000m, N 775112m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.714291, -6.348719
Test-pits were excavated on a site for three residential units at Bessexwell Lane, Drogheda, a narrow thoroughfare close to St Mary's Bridge at the centre of the medieval town. The site had a street frontage of 14.5m and extended for a distance of 23m from the lane.
Archaeological deposits of medieval date were present at an average depth of 0.5m below the present ground surface. The material consisted of stone walls, evidence for wooden structures, dumped layers of roof slate, shells and general habitation refuse. A series of house floors of clay were identified in a test-pit 2.3m from the lane.
The top surface of a widespread deposit of black/brown organic peaty clay was encountered in the test-pits at depths ranging from 0.8m to 1.65m. Medieval pottery, leather scraps and three plain wooden pins or skewers were recovered from the peat. These organic deposits, probably of late twelfth- and thirteenth-century date and of considerable depth, appear to underlie the entire site and are commonly found during site testings and excavations in this low-lying area of the town.
Archaeological deposits of late sixteenth- to eighteenth-century date occurred within 0.5m of the ground surface. Finds included an almost-complete Plain Frechen stoneware jug of 1575–1600.
In view of the soft ground conditions the two-storey development was constructed on a concrete slab foundation which sealed the archaeological deposits.
6 St Ultans, Laytown, Drogheda, Co. Louth
