County: Louth Site name: DROGHEDA: Town Centre, Dyer Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 24:41 Licence number: 99E0248
Author: Donald Murphy, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Building
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 708822m, N 775044m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.713719, -6.351434
An excavation was conducted during six weeks from 2 September to 15 October 1999 to the rear of Farney Villa and Distillery House, Dyer Street, Drogheda. An area measuring 25m east-west by 35m was excavated to a depth of 0.5m before construction of a proposed carpark and extension to the existing Drogheda Town Centre.
The site was covered in a brown, post-medieval layer that lay directly below the concrete and hardcore to the rear of Farney Villa. Within this layer a number of post-medieval bonded stone walls were exposed to the north and east of the site. These represented the foundation walls for 19th-century storerooms that were originally part of the whiskey distillery of Preston Bros and are clearly marked on the 1870 OS map of Drogheda. One of these storerooms was constructed above two post-medieval well shafts. These had been deliberately covered with large slate slabs and sealed beneath the brick and mortar floor of the storeroom. An extensive brick drain network was also exposed within this layer, which radiated throughout the site and was also 19th-century in date.
A second post-medieval brown loam was exposed below this layer and was also spread throughout the site. Two slate-roofed culverts were exposed within this layer running north-south; these were also post-medieval in date. Four additional areas measuring c. 7m by 5m were excavated to a depth of 1.4m in the areas to be disturbed by the insertion of ground-beams. A dauby clay of medieval date was exposed in three of these trenches at an average depth of 1.4m, below the post-medieval brown loam. A possible medieval culvert and clay-bonded wall were exposed in the north-east corner of the site, in association with a medieval, brown, gravelly clay that may represent a floor. A small test-hole measuring 0.5m by 0.5m was excavated to a depth of c. 0.7m in this area, to determine the depth of natural deposits. A dark grey, organic layer was exposed below the gravelly clay, which in turn lay above a medieval, organic, peaty layer.
The excavation revealed that extensive post-medieval deposits and walls survive at an average depth of 0.5m over much of the site and are clearly associated with the whiskey distillery that stood here. In addition, significant medieval deposits survive at an average depth of 1.5m. The proposed foundation layout has been revised in order that the archaeological material not be affected.
15 Trinity Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth
