County: Down Site name: DOWNPATRICK: Belfast Road (Marsh Lane)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Cia Mc Conway, Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Site type: Causeway
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 747965m, N 845593m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.337556, -5.724556
The site encloses an area of approximately 3.55ha, north-east of the Mound of Down. A low embankment or causeway runs across the site for 120m. It continues for a further 65m beyond the development area to the south, stopping just short of Windmill Lane and the Mound of Down. The site is divided into roughly four quadrants by Marsh Lane running east-west and a water-filled drain north-south. It is proposed that only the two eastern quadrants will be developed.
The causeway runs across the site in a north-east/south-west direction from close to the Belfast Road (A7)/New Bridge Street (A25) junction to beyond the site, just stopping short of the eastern break in the enclosing bank of the Mound of Down. The causeway is the only upstanding feature on the site, standing 0.5-1m high and 15-20m wide. The causeway has apparently been breached by Marsh Lane and has suffered recent damage by tractors or heavy vehicles.
The causeway is not marked on the 1834 1st edition OS map of the area, nor on the maps dating from 1708, 1720 and 1729, suggesting that it is later 19th- or 20th-century in date. However, it is possible that, although the causeway is of no great antiquity, it may have traced the line of an earlier pathway, leading from higher ground to the Mound of Down.
An assessment was carried out to try to establish the form, function and date of the causeway and to determine whether it overlay an earlier trackway.
Investigations revealed that the causeway was a man-made construction, composed from a homogeneous, very compact buff/light orange stony clay with red brick inclusions. Both pottery recovered from the clay and the red brick suggest an earliest possible date of mid-19th century. The causeway was constructed directly on top of a black, soddy clay-an old ground surface. There was no evidence for any pre-causeway activity. A 3.7m depth of homogeneous, silty grey clay was investigated but contained no finds bar a few fragments of tree root and branch, finds typical within flood silt.
Although the exact function of the causeway remains unclear, both its nature and composition and also references from the historical sources might suggest that it is a sample portion of rail track laid down under the instruction of engineer John Goodwin in 1853/4.
Windsor House, 11 Fairview Strand, Fairview, Dublin 3
