2002:1296 - CARLINGFORD: Back Lane/Newry Street, Louth

The site of the proposed development is between Back Lane and Newry Street, Carlingford, Co. Louth, in an area of archaeological potential as identified in the Urban Archaeological Survey of County Louth. An assessment was carried out before the construction of six residential and two commercial units. The site fronts onto both streets and is to the north of the remains of a late medieval house and to the west of a late medieval tower-house. The site slopes dramatically from Back Lane on the west to Newry Street on the east.

The site was initially tested by Donald Murphy on 9 April 2001 (Excavations 2001, No. 837), when three trenches at the Back Lane end of the site revealed post-medieval garden soils. A linear feature was also exposed cut into the natural, gravelly boulder clay in Trench 1. The two trenches excavated along the Newry Street end of the site produced similar stratigraphy. A wall exposed in Trench 2 was originally interpreted as the possible north wall of the late medieval house the southern gable of which still stands on the adjoining site to the south.

Further testing was carried out from 8 to 10 April 2002, when five more trenches (Trenches 4–8) were dug. Trench 4 was excavated against a roughly coursed limestone wall that bordered the site to the west. Garden soil was exposed within it, which produced post-medieval to modern finds. Finds recovered from the base of this wall were also post-medieval to modern, which suggests that this wall is of similar date.

Trench 5 was excavated along the southern border. The remains of a collapsed random-rubble wall were exposed at 0.3m below the garden soil. This wall was one to two courses deep and was visible for a length of 3.8m before it petered out to the east. Brick and post-medieval/modern pottery were recovered from the wall and the garden soil below it. This suggests a post-medieval to modern date for the construction of the wall, which probably functioned as a boundary wall.

Trench 6, in the south-east corner of the site, was opened to establish the nature and extent of the possible medieval wall exposed in Trench 2 during initial testing and to attempt to establish the origin and date of the wall that bordered the site to the east. This wall extended westward in the trench for 8.6m; it decreased in height as it progressed westward and eventually petered out. This wall extended farther west than the upstanding southern gable wall of the medieval house in the neighbouring property and therefore is not the northern gable wall, as initially thought. Finds recovered from the vicinity of the wall during previous testing were medieval but may have been residual. The current phase of testing has showed that this wall extends eastward toward Newry Street, where it returns southward along the neighbouring property and abuts the upstanding medieval gable at the southern end of that site. It is probably later than the medieval gable and is most likely of post-medieval date.

The inner face of the wall that fronted onto Newry Street was also exposed in this trench. This was a roughly coursed, limestone rubble, mortared wall that ran up against the face of the possible medieval wall. This suggests that it was later than the possible medieval wall. Finds recovered from crevices in the wall (a sherd of unglazed earthenware and a clay pipe) and from the cut for the wall (post-medieval earthenware) further reinforce the idea that this was later than the wall that bordered the site to the south, probably post-medieval to modern.

Trench 7 was excavated along a mortared limestone wall that bordered part of the site to the north (the remainder of the northern extent of the site was bordered by a fence). Garden soil exposed in this trench produced post-medieval earthenware. Finds recovered from the base of this wall were also post-medieval to modern, which suggests that this wall is of similar date.

The final trench was excavated to establish the nature of the linear feature exposed in Trench 1 during the initial phase of testing, which ran north–south across the site and extended beyond the limits of Trench 1. Trench 8 was excavated east–west across this feature, which was shallow, with a maximum depth of 0.1m, and was filled with a fine, grey/brown, gravelly, silty clay with frequent inclusions of stone. Modern delft and earthenware were recovered from the fill. The feature most likely functioned as a drain/gully and was probably not archaeological in nature.

No evidence was recovered of the former presence of buildings or houses on the site. The severe slope may have prohibited building on the site. The site is known as the Herb Garden, and this may suggest an agricultural rather than a residential use of the site over a long period.

Unit 21, Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth