2001:845 - DROGHEDA: John Street/Donore Road, Louth

An assessment was carried out across the site of proposed road-widening on the south side of John Street leading onto Donore Road, Drogheda, Co. Louth, on 29 November 2001. Straddling the location of the medieval town wall, the site had been investigated previously as part of the main drainage and interceptor sewer schemes.

Three test-trenches were excavated across the proposed slip-road, revealing extensive disturbance caused by the main drainage sewer and later cable ducting. A truncated deposit of late medieval garden soil was revealed at the base of Trench 1, from which two sherds of late medieval pottery were recovered. Here mid-brown gravelly topsoil 0.6m deep, containing fragments of red brick, small stones and modern finds including rubber pipe, bottles and aluminium cans, overlay a deposit of mixed dark brown clay on average 1.1m deep, containing red brick, stone, gravel patches with orange-brown clay and a series of tightly arranged plastic ducting pipes (base 3.486m OD), which extended west through Trenches 2 and 3 and the base of which overlay a deposit of sterile dark brown clay, 0.2m deep. The base of Trench 1 was characterised by interrupted sections of black clay, 0.1m deep (top 3.28m OD), representing remains of a late medieval garden soil which contained scattered stone, occasional shell and animal bone fragments and two sherds of later medieval local ware. The garden soil deposit extended through Trenches 1 and 2 and lay above the natural green gravelly subsoil. The proposed formation level of the slip-road (4.2m OD) lay above the level of the garden soil. Monitoring of ground reduction for the proposed slip-road was undertaken by Eoin Corcoran.

Unit 22, Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth