2001:038 - CAVAN: Main Street, Cavan

Archaeological resolution was required as recommended in an earlier archaeological assessment (see Excavation 2001, No. 37) which drew attention to a drystone feature contained within a c. 2m2 area of intact deposits in a backyard that had been otherwise reduced to bedrock.

The site is on the eastern side of the Main Street of the town, which was founded by the O’Reillys in the later Middle Ages. Netherclift’s map of Cavan town, 1593, depicts the main street as extensively developed, and linear properties, possibly burgage plots, appear to have extended behind the houses on the east side of the street towards the high ridge to the west of the town.

The surviving deposits indicated that the yard was covered by several modern working surfaces (0.32m thick) over a brown silty clay layer (0.38m thick) containing mortar and red brick fragments and a sherd of brown ware. It sealed the original topsoil layer and the stone structure that was cut into it. The original topsoil (0.5m thick) was a grey-brown sticky clay, flecked with charcoal and redeposited yellow boulder clay, indicating that it had been well mixed by regular disturbance. A small quantity of bone indicated the dumping of kitchen waste. Finds of black ware and a clay pipe stem near the top of the layer suggested that it had remained as an exposed active layer until the late 18th or 19th century. Extensive modern disturbance had been caused by the building of a shed immediately to the east and a large building to the north, in the adjacent property.

Excavations determined that the stone feature, which had been truncated on the eastern and western sides, was either a drystone drain or a pit constructed of large, roughly coursed sandstone blocks, with the sides tapering out slightly from the base to the top. It measured 1.2m long by 0.8m wide. A possible linear cut through the original topsoil layer that may have been made to receive the structure was discerned on the southern side of the drain. No construction date can be advanced, although it was backfilled in the late 18th century.

The base fill of the structure was a dark grey-brown, very sticky clay that appeared to represent silting. At least four fills represented a single deliberate backfill phase at the end of the 18th century, as marble ware sherds from the same vessel were found dispersed in both the upper and lower dump layers. This took place after 1772, as a punched-through Irish coin of George II was found in one of the fills. Other pottery from the stone structure included cream ware, salt-glazed stoneware, black ware, mottled ware and Pratt ware. Glass, slate and unglazed orange roof tile fragments were also recovered.

The presence of roof tiles could relate to the demolition or refurbishment of a building, perhaps of 17th-century date, on the street frontage.

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