County: Louth Site name: DUNDALK: Dublin Road (Priorland/Marshes Lower)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 7:114 (vicinity of) Licence number: 99E0516
Author: Rob Lynch, IAC Ltd.
Site type: Road - road/trackway
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 705476m, N 804228m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.976554, -6.392086
Test-trenching on Line 8 of the proposed Dundalk Sewerage Scheme, Contract No. 3, was requested by Dundalk Urban District Council following the discovery of the remains of a substantial cobbled surface during the monitoring of pipe-laying (see No. 599, Excavations 1999). Three trenches were excavated between 21 and 23 September 1999.
Line 8 is a 450mm-diameter foul sewer that runs along the route of the Dublin road for 300m before turning south-west along Priorland Road. The pipeline trench will be c. 1.2m wide and up to 4m deep. The site was outside Crossan's garage on the Dublin road, to the south of the town centre.
Trench 1 was 21m south-west of the area of cobbling exposed during monitoring. A continuation of the cobbled surface was recorded at 1.1m from present ground level. Trenches 2 and 3 contained no evidence of cobbling.
The results of the test-trenching, coupled with the evidence provided by the monitoring, indicates the presence of a roughly constructed cobbled surface stretching for between 35m and 45m south-east from the manhole MH 110. It could also be seen to extend beyond MH 110 to the north-east, where MH 110 will link with an extension of Line 8 that follows the line of the culvert containing the Ramparts River on the east side of Hill Street. The cobbled surface would seem to be present only in the low-lying and waterlogged area at the north-western end of Line 8, around Crossan's garage. The cobbles would appear to give way to the more stable and dry boulder clay that lay upslope, to the south-east.
8 Dungar Terrace, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin