2002:1330 - DUNDALK: Bridge Street, Louth

An assessment took place of Phase 2 of a proposed development at the north end of Bridge Street, Dundalk, on the west side of the street, c. 50m from Dundalk Bridge. The development site measured 50m north–south by 58m. Phase 1 consisted of the construction of eight houses at the rear of the site, with an entrance drive and parking areas (Excavations 2000, No. 667, 00E0021). Phase 2 involved the construction of an apartment block fronting onto the street at the south-eastern part of the site, a development area measuring 18.5m east–west by 36m.

The site lies within the area of the medieval town of Dundalk. The town wall ran 30m to the west of the development site, approximately on the line of St Nicholas Avenue, and then turned east along Maxwell Row to a gate, the North Gate, at the top of Bridge Street, by Dundalk Bridge (Gosling 1993, 263–6, fig. 13). St Nicholas Avenue and Maxwell Row are modern streets but follow boundaries established by the town defences.

A 19th-century house had been demolished to make way for this development, and the surface of the site was a maximum of c. 0.35m lower than the level of the footpath on Bridge Street. The material on the surface appeared to consist of a levelled stony fill on the eastern side and demolition-type rubble on the western. There was a very slight slope down from south to north on the site.

Six test-trenches were excavated, using a tracked excavator fitted with a 0.6m bucket. Nothing of archaeological interest was noted in the trenches, and subsoil was reached at 0.1–0.35m under recent demolition rubble.

The section face was examined at the Bridge Street footpath along the eastern edge of the site. It had a maximum height of 0.35m. Subsoil was visible over the southern half, extending to within 0.1m of the footpath level in some places. The subsoil was generally overlain by recent rubble and fill. However, a deposit of archaeological interest was noted at the south-eastern corner of the site.

The deposit had maximum dimensions of 2.4m north–south by 1.1m and had been truncated to the south by the insertion of a brick manhole and to the west and north probably by site clearance. The surface of the archaeological deposit was c. 0.1m below the surface level of the footpath. The deposit consisted of a dark grey, sandy, silty clay with frequent shells (cockle, mussel and occasional periwinkle), occasional animal bone and two sherds of black-glazed earthenware. The pottery sherds probably date to the late 17th or 18th century. They are from two different vessels, and, though glazed very dark brown, are in the tradition generally known as blackware. The sherds are imports, most likely from north-west England, i.e. south Lancashire or Staffordshire, or Buckley in Clwyd, Wales (K. Campbell, pers. comm.).

The deposit covered a cobbled surface that had been laid directly on subsoil and that continued east, sloping down under a brick foundation, 0.5m wide, adjoining the footpath. The deposit over the cobbles was 0.1m thick at its western edge but increased to 0.2m thick as the cobbles sloped eastward. The brick foundation truncated the archaeological deposit and was built on the cobbles.

The cobbled surface and associated deposit most likely date to the late 17th or 18th century and probably relate to the buildings shown on the town maps of 1680 and/or 1785. The soil deposit with bones and shells may have accumulated on the cobbles during a period of dereliction. Owing to the shallowness of the archaeological deposits, they had been removed from the site either during recent demolition and site clearance or possibly during the construction of the gasworks in the late 19th century.

Reference
Gosling, P. 1991 From Dun Delca to Dundalk: the topography and archaeology of a medieval frontier town, AD c. 1187–1700. Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society 22 (3), 217–353.

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