2002:0388 - CROSSREAGH WEST, Derry

Excavation was undertaken at Crossreagh West before the construction of a housing development on a single building plot at the Meadowlands housing estate on the southern outskirts of Port Stewart. The site is c. 50m to the south of a Neolithic funerary monument (SMR 3:2) excavated by Declan Hurl in 1994 (Excavations 1994, No. 37). In addition to establishing the extent of the Neolithic funerary monument, Hurl’s excavations revealed evidence of Late Neolithic, Early Bronze Age and medieval pits, possible post-holes and gullies cut into both the mound and the natural subsoil of the area immediately surrounding the monument.

After mechanical excavation of the topsoil on the building plot, site visits undertaken by Stephen Gilmore, NAC Ltd, on 24 November 2000 and Declan Hurl on 19 February 2001 resulted in traces of several truncated features cut into the natural subsoil being observed. These observations, combined with the proximity of the site to the Neolithic funerary monument excavated in 1994, led to the Environment and Heritage Service: Built Heritage deciding that an excavation of the building plot was necessary before any construction work took place.

Excavation was carried out between 1 and 26 July 2002. Since the topsoil-stripping of the site over eighteen months previously, the building plot had been used for dumping quarried stone, rubble and topsoil associated with construction work on adjacent building plots and had been repeatedly driven over by heavy plant. In addition, several bonfires had been lit on the site, and it had become overgrown with weeds. Initially, the site was cleared of both relict traces of topsoil and the dumped deposits of general ‘trample’, building debris, quarried stone and redeposited topsoil. After this clearance, it was revealed that the features recorded by Gilmore and Hurl had been either considerably damaged by the subsequent activity on the site or destroyed altogether.

Only nine truncated features survived, all in the southern half of the site, where the natural subsoil was deepest. They included an oval pit of recent date, six possible stake-holes or small post-holes, and a hearth complex. Unfortunately, as well as being severely truncated, several of the features had been disturbed by animal burrows. All were fully excavated, and soil samples, intended for extracting charcoal for radiocarbon dating, were taken from their fills. Only one stratigraphic relationship between these features could be established: one of the possible small post-holes cut through part of the hearth complex. Their distribution across the site did not form any obvious pattern or arrangement to suggest that they were part of a contemporaneous structure, although presumably the hearth complex was originally within some form of structure. During the excavation a small number of finds were recovered (mostly flint flakes but also pottery sherds, burnt bone, glass and clay-pipe stems), although only a few of these were associated with the excavated features.

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