County: Louth Site name: THOMASTOWN: Knock Abbey
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 11:80 Licence number: 02E1522
Author: Kieran Campbell
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 692871m, N 798852m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.930676, -6.585810
The development consisted of the conversion of a range of single-storey farm outbuildings into three self-contained dwelling units. The outbuildings were in the farmyard formerly attached to Knock Abbey, a medieval tower-house with additions of 17th- to 20th-century date, known as Thomastown Castle until 1860. Edmond O’Donovan had monitored renovation work to the tower-house in 1999 (Excavations 1999, No. 640, 99E0260).
The farmyard is 80m west of the tower-house. The outbuilding dates to the mid-19th century and is not shown on the 1836 first edition of the OS 6-inch map. Part of the building had been in use for around twenty years as the dog pound for County Louth, and the last remaining dogs were removed on the day of the archaeological investigations, 30 September 2002. The existing floors consisted of bare earth with partial cobbling, red brick and concrete. All existing walls are to be retained in the development.
A number of 1m-square hand-dug test-pits were excavated on the lines of the proposed new internal walls. Excavation through layered rubble, of stone, brick and slate fragments, exposed a brown, stony clay subsoil at a depth of 0.32m. The rubble was possibly debris from the original construction or from removed internal partition walls, for which some evidence was found. A machine-dug test-trench, excavated 20m north of the outbuilding, in the area of the wastewater treatment unit, uncovered a deposit of dumped soil and building rubble, up to 0.8m thick, overlying subsoil.
6 St Ultan’s, Laytown, Drogheda, Co. Louth
