2001:852 - DUNDALK: St Nicholas’s Church, Bridge Street/Linenhall Street, Louth

Monitoring of ground reduction for landscaping purposes was undertaken at St Nicholas’s RC Church on 11–12 June 2001. The area of ground reduction comprised an open grassed area immediately south of the church, within which mechanical excavation reduced the level by 0.3–0.5m. Topsoil comprised garden soil intermixed with stone, brick rubble and refuse on average 0.3m in depth over a layer of mixed grey clay and sand representing made-up ground from the 18th century or later. Topsoil was removed from the site and the underlying mixed clay and sand was levelled to form a base for proposed landscaping of the garden area, incorporating paths and monumental features.

Masonry wall foundations were revealed in the underlying clay and consisted of rubble limestone walls of varying dimensions augmented in the upper surface by gritty mortar. Remains of a west–east-aligned wall (F1) were revealed across the southern area, north and east of which lay the remains of a rectangular structure (F2) of similar masonry and mortar composition. F1 was c. 3.7m from the south entrance into the church garden and appeared uninterrupted, surviving as 11m long and 1.65m wide. Wall F2 (less clearly defined than F1) comprised a roughly rectangular structure c. 9m north–south by 11m, with walls up to 2.5m wide, surrounded and overlain by much brick and stone rubble. A further interrupted stretch of limestone wall, F3, was located west of F2 and ran perpendicular to F1, surviving to between 1m (north) and 1.9m (south) in width. Unlike F1 and F2, this wall was heavily concreted, particularly through its upper courses; owing to the formation levels required for the proposed landscaping, the southern section of the wall was not fully exposed. An area of collapsed rubble also survived, extending from the north-west corner of F2 and apparently cut by F3. It was impossible to determine whether this represented very degraded or disturbed masonry remains or the rubble fill of a wall trench.

Finds from the ground reduction comprised occasional fragments of bone, patterned modern ceramics and numerous early modern wine and soft drink bottles. No finds of archaeological significance were revealed.

Proposed landscaping did not affect any of the masonry remains that were exposed and all of the walls were preserved on site. Walls F1 and F2 appear to represent the remains of a mid- to late 18th-century building shown at this location on the 1782–7 Clanbrassil estate map.

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