2002:1285 - ARDEE: Ardee Bakery, Castle Street/Tierney Street, Louth

An assessment was undertaken before an application for planning permission to demolish and redevelop the site of the Ardee Bakery. The site is at the corner of Castle Street and Tierney Street. It measures c. 50m2 and is split between the bakery buildings and yard and a house and property abutting the northern side of the bakery.

Gilbert de Pipard was granted lands in the provinces of Mide and Ulaid in 1185. He founded the town of Ardee sometime after the construction of his motte castle at nearby Castle Guard.

Twelve test-pits were opened across the site, which yielded a limited view of individual features. Medieval features were excavated only where it was deemed necessary to define the depth and nature of particular deposits. Nonetheless, there was extensive evidence of medieval and post-medieval occupation, including buildings, property boundaries and pits.

Test-pits within the standing 20th-century bakery building on the Castle Street front indicated that a sequence of floors and walls below the present building related to three post-medieval buildings that covered a medieval building and associated occupation. Below the modern concrete floor a red-brick floor sat on a rubble demolition layer covering the flagstone floor of an earlier building. The flagstones sat on the rear wall of an earlier building. That wall was constructed on top of a metalled surface and incorporated the base of a blackware vessel, suggesting that this sequence of building began in the 18th century. The corner of a medieval building was exposed below these levels (0.9m below the modern bakery floor). The walls (0.6–1m thick) were constructed of clay-bonded, water-rolled stones. Occupation deposits consisted of a hearth area set on natural subsoil and two stake-holes, perhaps for a cooking spit. They were sealed by orange/brown clay. A grey silty clay containing medieval pottery covered this and appeared to extend over the rear wall of the house, suggesting that it had been demolished in the Middle Ages.

Testing on the Tierney Street front below the level of the modern building revealed a clay-bonded, north–south-running gable wall of an 18th- or 19th-century building. Occupation consisted of a 19th-century tiled surface with a hearth that had reddened the clay bonding of the adjacent wall. Below this a clay layer, 0.4m thick, sealed an east–west-running wall, apparently the rear wall of an earlier building. The upper occupation deposit (occurring 1.1m below the modern bakery surface) contained metal slag and black- to green-glazed, coal-measure-tempered ware, suggesting abandonment in the 17th century. Excavations stopped at this level.

The yard area revealed the foundations of a rectangular building indicated on the first-edition OS map (1835). The foundations cut into black clay containing medieval ceramics, but red brick in the wall core suggests that it was constructed no earlier than the 18th century. The wall foundations and cobbled floor of a well house abutting this building were inserted after 1835. A post-medieval box drain and an earth closet were also exposed to the rear of the property.

Medieval features uncovered in the yard consisted of three ditches that correspond to property boundaries marked on the first-edition OS map. The most complete boundary, running east–west, contained a single fill and was cut to a depth of 0.9m through the subsoil. Only the northern side of the cut was exposed, which indicated that it had a gently sloping profile and a flat base. The ditch can be estimated to be c. 2m wide. A second boundary was filled with clay containing medieval ceramics and metal slag. The upper part of the ditch was backfilled in the late 18th century, as it contains wine bottles and creamware.

Medieval ceramics included 22 sherds of coarse cooking ware of Leinster type and 63 sherds of glazed wares of local type. Post-medieval ceramics consisted of 17th-century glazed wares of gravel-tempered, temper-free and blackware types, 18th- to 19th-century creamwares, pearlwares and blackwares, and 19th-century sponged-pressed decorated wares.

Unit 4, Dundrum Business Park, Dundrum, Dublin 14