County: Down Site name: NEWRY: Bagenal's Castle (McCann's Bakery)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 46:40 Licence number: —
Author: Dermot G. Moore, ADS Ltd.
Site type: Castle - tower house
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 708657m, N 826156m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.172858, -6.335743
As part of the planning conditions for the proposed construction of a carpark at McCann's Bakery, a large area to the north and north-west of the present buildings was to be reduced to enable hardcore and services to be inserted. This involved the removal of large platforms of concrete overlying rubble landfill and was monitored under archaeological supervision.
Although the site lay within the area of the Cistercian monastery founded at Newry in 1153, nothing now remains of the monastic buildings. Records indicate that in 1552 the lands and buildings were granted to Sir Nicholas Bagenal, who built an elaborate tower-house on the site. This tower-house was presumed to have been demolished when the bakery was constructed in the 1830s, but a site visit in 1998 revealed that a substantial portion of the castle remained standing, albeit severely damaged in places, within the fabric of the bakery complex.
In total, an area of 1500m2 was reduced by machine and concrete/rock-breaker. Nothing of archaeological significance was uncovered in the area monitored.
Unit 48, Westlink Enterprise Centre, 30–50 Distillery Street, Belfast BT12 5BJ
