2000:0670 - DUNDALK: Crowe Street, Louth

A preliminary archaeological assessment and a building survey were carried out at the Courthouse and Town Hall, Dundalk, Co. Louth. The site lies at the south-west and south-central section of a block defined by and fronting onto Crowe Street (south) and Clanbrassil Street (west) and is further defined by Market Street (north) and Defenders Row (east). Crowe Street lies close to the probable location of the south-facing ravelin of the south-east earthen bastion of the Williamite defences of the town, as depicted on a map by John Goubet (1690–1). The present Courthouse building, completed by 1818, is characterised by a Grecian façade, while the Town Hall, designed in the Italianate style and built on the site of the old County Jail (depicted on the Clanbrassil Estate map of 1785), was formerly the Dundalk Exchange and became the Town Hall in 1865.

Assessment was undertaken on 15 January 2000. Two test-trenches were excavated across open and accessible areas of the site. Trench 1 (11.5m x 0.9m) ran west–east to the rear (north) of the Town Hall. Trench 2 (9m x 0.9m) ran west–east across a small carpark at the rear (south-east) of the Courthouse.

Trench 1 was excavated to a maximum depth of 1.8m. Removal of tarmac and underlying hardcore and redbrick rubble to a depth of 0.75m below ground level revealed a substantial west–east-orientated limestone wall (F1) along the southern section of the trench. A second, later limestone wall (F2) was located perpendicular (north–south) to and crossing the line of F1. Wall F1 was cut into brown, wet clay containing numerous stones on the west side of F2, and the water-table was encountered at a depth of 1.2m. To the east, both F1 and F2 were cut into blue, wet clay, which was excavated to a depth of 1.8m, at which point the trench was inundated with water. Early modern glass bottles and metal fragments and a fragment of a post-medieval buckle were recovered from the base of the rubble overburden in the western end of the trench. No finds of archaeological potential were revealed from the underlying clay layers into which the walls had been cut. F1 lay 0.8–0.85m below ground level and stretched from the western end of the trench for a distance of 8.7m, surviving to 0.32–0.38m high, composed of cut limestone slabs c. 0.05–0.1m thick, providing the wall with a fair face. The width of the wall was not ascertained owing to active services in the area, though it extended west from the test-trench. F2 was located perpendicular (north–south) to F1, 4.75m from the west end of the trench. It lay 0.8m below ground level, extending north beyond the limit of excavation and south over wall F1. It consisted of limestone rubble, surviving to 0.5m high and 0.7m wide, bonded with gritty, concrete-like mortar. Again it was not possible to ascertain the full extent of this wall because of the presence of active services north and south of the test-trench.

Trench 2 was excavated to a maximum depth of 0.9m. Removal of tarmac and hardcore to a depth of 0.3m revealed a deposit of buff-coloured sand containing redbrick fragments 0.12m deep. Below this level lay a very compact surface characterised by roughly cut limestone blocks bonded with gritty, concrete-like mortar, which extended throughout the base of the trench, lying 0.5m below street level. The surface was largely impenetrable to the mechanical excavator and would appear to extend as a raft across the whole carpark area in the south-west corner of the Courthouse.

The walls located do not appear to be of medieval character, and in that respect they are most likely partition or property walls that marked the former, more limited, extent of the Town Hall property, possibly that depicted on the 1836 OS map. A second stage of archaeological assessment/ monitoring is expected when the decision to remove standing remains is taken.

15 Trinity Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth