2002:1420 - ATHBOY: Townparks, Meath

A proposed retail development was given planning consent with the constraint that an archaeological evaluation of the site be undertaken. The site was tested on 29 August 2002. An area measuring c. 10m by c. 3m was stripped to the natural subsoil, along with an extension to the south. Along the western edge and in the south-western corner of the stripped area were the limestone foundations of a wall and one corner of a building. The wall, c. 0.9m wide, was not mortar bonded and sat in a construction trench. The construction trench itself cut the fill of a ditch, c. 2.5m wide, that ran from west to east, roughly parallel to the street frontage. The fill of the ditch contained a significant amount of limestone rubble. It is possible but by no means certain that the ditch is the robbed-out foundations of the medieval town wall. If this were the case, the wall may have been demolished in the early post-medieval period, with the overlying structure being a slightly later encroachment onto the backfilled site of the robbed-out wall. No artefacts were discovered to facilitate the dating of these features.

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