County: Cavan Site name: CAVAN: Main Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0577
Author: Finola O’Carroll, Cultural Resource Development Services Ltd.
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 641953m, N 804804m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.990788, -7.360255
Testing was undertaken on a site in Cavan town on 6 July 2001 in advance of development. The site consists of a yard immediately behind a dwelling fronting onto Main Street. Netherclift’s map of the medieval town dating from 1593 would suggest that the development is within a medieval property associated with a house.
The yard previously contained a number of outbuildings, recently demolished. Four test-trenches were excavated by mechanical digger. From these it was apparent that the previous demolition work had stripped most of the site entirely down to bedrock. The first trench showed modern disturbance to a depth of 0.9m, where the undisturbed subsoil was exposed. Three further trenches excavated to the same depth exposed only shale and fragmented bedrock, disturbance from the demolition, directly over undisturbed bedrock. Most of the site appeared to have been stripped to a depth varying from 0.3m to 1.2m below the original building level. Nothing of archaeological significance was detected.
A small area of the site retained the original ground level. Here the original stratigraphy of the upper levels was exposed in section. This consisted of a modern mortared yard surface, 0.12m deep, overlying 0.3m of silty clay containing brick fragments. Beneath this a layer of mid-brown silty clay, 0.6m deep, gave way to compact silty clay subsoil. A stone box drain was also visible in section. This was later excavated and recorded under a separate licence (see Excavations 2001, No. 38).
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