County: Carlow Site name: TULLOW: Mill Street/Inner Relief Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1620
Author: Emmet Stafford, Stafford McLoughlin Archaeology
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 685153m, N 673142m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.802547, -6.737152
Testing was undertaken at the site of a proposed development at the corner of Mill Street/Inner Relief Road, Tullow, on 19 November 2002. The site is at the extreme eastern edge of the zone of archaeological potential of Tullow, on the northern bank of the River Barrow.
A substantial strip-trench was excavated along the northern boundary of the site, and four shorter trenches were dug along the western and southern limits. Nothing of archaeological significance was uncovered during the excavation of 175m2 of test-trenches within, and in the vicinity of, the footprint of the proposed development.
The level at which undisturbed natural geology was uncovered varied between 0.2m and 2.1m below present ground level across the site. The shallowest discovery of subsoil corresponded with the highest point on the site, where bedrock was uncovered almost immediately below present ground level. The bedrock appeared to represent the lowest point of the hill on which Tullow town has developed.
Along the south-western perimeter of the site substantial deposits of made ground were uncovered overlying what appeared to be the remains of riverine activity. The test-trenching exercise appears to suggest that inundation of the River Barrow once extended across perhaps half of the development site. The most substantial increase in ground level appears to have occurred in recent years, perhaps since the construction of the Inner Relief Road, and is represented by deposits containing modern inclusions that extend to 1.1–1.4m below present ground level across the south-western half of the site.
Unit 4, Enniscorthy Enterprise Centre, Milehouse Road, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford
