County: Louth Site name: DROGHEDA: Millmount
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 24:25 Licence number: 98E0194
Author: Donald Murphy, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Castle - motte and bailey
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 708934m, N 774799m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.711498, -6.349818
Archaeological assessment was undertaken at the Millmount, Lagavooren, Drogheda, Co. Louth, in advance of conservation and restoration work by Drogheda Corporation on the Martello tower at the summit. The site is a large motte with attached lower bailey, which was subsequently used as a windmill in the later medieval period, and featured in the Cromwellian siege of the town. Since then it has been used as a military barracks and is currently a museum.
Three trenches were excavated. Trench 1 ran from the southern face of the tower to the surrounding modern stone wall on the perimeter. A layer of black loam containing limestone rubble, red brick and 19th-century pottery was encountered below the sod line. This layer was up to 0.5m thick and abutted the dressed stone plinth of the Martello tower. This overlay a layer of brown clay with red brick flecks up to 0.33m thick, which also abutted the tower. Under this was a layer of orange daub up to 0.23m thick and extending 1.44m wide from the tower, abutting the plinth and overlying the roughly built stone footing. A mortared limestone wall running south seems to have been cut during the construction of the tower and was up to three courses thick. The wall was abutted by a mid-brown clay with brick fragments. Excavation ceased at this point.
Trench 2 lay to the south-east of Trench 1. A thin layer of black clay loam was removed, up to 0.6m deep, and a large mortared stone wall was encountered at 46.056m OD. The wall extended throughout the entire trench and was bonded with a compact, white mortar that contained red brick fragments. Excavation ceased at this point.
Trench 3 was excavated on the north side of the tower. A layer of black clay loam under the sod contained glass fragments, red brick fragments and coal, continued to 46.626m OD and was identical to the uppermost layer in Trench 1. This overlay a layer of mid-brown clay containing red brick fragments and coal that was also identical to that in Trench 1. Under this a red brick structure at least two courses high, which abutted the lower footing of the Martello tower, was revealed at 46.346m OD.
Development of a viewing deck for the Martello tower is expected to be restricted to above these earlier structures, which may be associated with the 18th-century barracks below in the bailey.
15 Trinity Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth
