County: Meath Site name: DULEEK:Colgan’s Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 27:38 Licence number: 02E0844
Author: Kieran Campbell
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 704666m, N 768423m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.655099, -6.416596
Test-trenches were excavated as part of an assessment of a proposed development site at Colgan’s Lane, which runs east from Main Street at the centre of the village of Duleek (Commons townland). The site measured 32m east–west by 28m and was on two levels, separated by a scarp, 1.8m high, caused by previous building work. The development comprised the construction of a two-storey semi-detached block, the lower floor situated at basement level, with an area surrounded by a retaining wall.
Six trenches, 1.52m wide, were excavated by machine, four on the higher level and two on the lower level by the lane front. Testing uncovered deposits ranging in date from the 13th century to recent times. The deposits of archaeological interest were confined to the southern half of the site, above the scarp that divides the site into two levels. Most of the northern part of the site, extending for c. 12m from the lane, was found to be reduced to subsoil level and below by previous disturbance.
In the southern half of the site, deposits were exposed under cultivation soil up to 0.7m thick. The deposits were broadly datable to two periods, the medieval (13th–15th centuries) and the modern (19th–20th centuries). The more recent deposits were probably a result of the insertion of service pipes for houses to the south of the site. The pottery finds, mostly of 19th–20th-century date, were likely to have derived from the topsoil that was backfilled into the trenches. It is also possible that some of the disturbance was due to small-scale quarry working for the extraction of gravel.
Medieval deposits were encountered across the central and eastern areas of the site. None of the deposits was excavated, but finds were recovered from the machined surface and when the features were cleaned down for recording. The deposits occurred as layers on the surface of the gravel and clay subsoil or as the fills of cuts, i.e. pits, gullies or ditches, excavated into the subsoil. Some of the deposits appeared to be shallow ( On the basis of the pottery found, most of the deposits are datable to the later medieval period, i.e. the later 14th–15th century. All of the pottery recovered was of local manufacture, and no imported wares were present.
6 St Ultan’s, Laytown, Drogheda, Co. Louth
