County: Louth Site name: DROGHEDA: Wellington Quay
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0172
Author: Christiaan Corlett, for Arch-Tech Ltd.
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 708927m, N 775617m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.718845, -6.349637
A programme of archaeological excavation was designed to test areas due to be disturbed during groundworks associated with the conversion of a post-medieval distillery. Ten trenches were opened mechanically.
The present building on the site appears to have been built directly on top of a redeposited light brown-grey silty estuarine clay which was dumped during the 18th century during a deliberate raising and levelling of the land east of the River Boyne. The upper levels of this natural clay were disturbed during the construction of the building, and the only finds consisted of three sherds of post-medieval pottery. The foundations of a post-medieval wall were found in Trench 9, and appear to represent an earlier phase of building associated with the distillery on the site. Surprisingly, given the proximity to the focus of settlement at medieval Drogheda, and in particular the evidence from previous excavations at the nearby junction of Stockwell Lane and Wellington Quay, no evidence for medieval settlement or other activity of any kind was found, despite extensive archaeological testing on the site. Despite reaching a depth of 1.34m OD in Trench 10, no sign of any earlier archaeological activity was found, and it appears that the reclamation material was dumped on an identical-coloured, natural estuarine silty clay.
32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2
