1996:283 - DUNDALK: Church Street, Louth

The site is located on the west side of Church Street, Dundalk, opposite the thirteenth-century parish church of St Nicholas. It has a street frontage of 9m, narrowing to 7.3m wide at the back of the site 21.4m from the street. Maps since 1594 show a continuous line of buildings along the west side of this street.

Four trial-holes were excavated through the rubble on the site to expose the surface of the archaeological deposits. Subsequent excavation by hand was limited to retrieving evidence of date. Three trial-holes excavated in line 5m from the street uncovered rich occupation material, of late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century date, at a depth of 0.4–0.45m immediately under a surface layer of loose rubble. The deposits had frequent inclusions of bone, shell and charcoal. The finds included a bodysherd of Cologne-Frechen stoneware with acanthus leaf decoration and a fragment of a Martincamp Type III flask.

In a trial-hole located 1 5.5m from the street a brown organic deposit containing bones, shells and decayed wood was recorded at a depth of 1m. This layer was 0.5m thick and rested on a rough surface of stone flags, below which were further deposits of organic material. A rimsherd of black-glazed mug, probably Cistercian-type, suggests a sixteenth/early seventeenth-century date for the organic deposit. Compact gravel sealing the organic layers produced the rim of a Staffordshire press-moulded plate.

As a result of the archaeological assessment, the substructure of the proposed buildings was redesigned and raised above the upper levels of the archaeological material.