1998:441 - DROGHEDA: 78/79 West Street, Louth

Five trenches were excavated at the rear of 78/ 79 West Street in advance of a proposed commercial development. West Street was one of the earliest streets founded in the medieval town, and burgage plots are likely to run north-south on both sides. The street and defences were expanded in the 13th century to incorporate the Abbey of St Mary D'Urso.

Trenches were placed along the lines of foundations and on the positions of reinforced concrete columns. The remains of an 18th-century building were found at 9.11m OD towards the western boundary of the site underlying a layer of red brick, mortar and other demolition waste in a matrix of mid-brown clay up to 0.62m deep. The structure consisted of a small, rectangular, cobbled room measuring 2.5m north-south by 2m east-west, which abutted a further eastern room with a clay floor the extent of which was not determined owing to the limitations of the trenches required.

Below this structure and over the remainder of the site was a deep layer of homogeneous, soft, mid-brown clay containing post-medieval and medieval pottery. At the southern end of the site bedrock was encountered at 8.6m OD, under a thin patchy layer of green-grey gravel. A cut had been clearly made into the bedrock and was filled with brown clay containing horn cores and post-medieval pottery to a depth of 8.6m OD. To the north the bedrock had been clearly cut away and the mid-brown layer was dug to 7.84m OD without reaching bedrock. At the north end of the site bedrock occurred again at 8.9m OD and rising, presumably following the rise to Fair Street, where OD levels stand at 19m OD. The drop in OD levels in the plot is suggestive of medieval and post-medieval quarrying, which has been seen elsewhere in the town.

15 Trinity Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth