County: Meath Site name: NAVAN: The Lyric Cinema, Brew's Hill
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 98E0233
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 686666m, N 767656m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.651490, -6.689037
When the Lyric Cinema was built in the 1940s a basement down to a depth of 2.5–3m below the street level was excavated. The evidence of the excavation remained in the form of concrete foundations down to the depth described. The foundations had cut through a clay layer c. 500mm deep; this overlay a 2m-deep natural deposit of grey sand. The top of another clay layer was exposed at this level.
As such a large proportion of the site had already been removed during the construction of the cinema, there was little left to test. A mechanical digger with a 3ft bucket was used to pull a trench along the access ramp along the east side of the site.
The stratigraphy was shown to be very disturbed, even in this area. An earthenware sewage pipe ran along the east side of the ramp; this lay at 1.5m below the present street level, and there was redeposited clay underlying the pipe and overlying the natural sand layer. A concrete wall associated with the cinema was exposed along the west side of the ramp. It was as deep as the other cinema walls. It is clear therefore that there was major disturbance in this area to a depth of c. 2.5m.
Nothing of archaeological interest was exposed in the test-trench.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
