County: Meath Site name: NAVAN: Metges Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0183
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Pit
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 686932m, N 767919m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.653810, -6.684936
The site lies within the area of the medieval walled town at the back of properties which front on to Watergate Street, and has been in use as a carpark in the recent past. The surface was levelled and tarmacadamed and the only upstanding remains are two stone walls. These are only two of the several surviving stone walls running east–west in this part of Navan, representing property boundaries running back from Watergate Street. Part of the town wall bounds the northernmost of these properties.
Seven trenches tested the site, which had received planning permission for a cinema. A layer of redeposited gravel, 500–900mm deep, covered the entire site, laid down during the excavation for the construction of the nearby multi-storey carpark. A grey soil layer lay underneath the gravel; this was interpreted as the old sod/garden soil layer. This overlay natural glacial deposits.
Apart from post-medieval disturbance (pits) in Trenches 4 and 6, there was no evidence for archaeological material on the site. There was no evidence to suggest that the stone walls were anything other than modern.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
