County: Tyrone Site name: STRABANE BYPASS
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/02/26
Author: Paul McCooey, NAC
Site type: Hearth, Barrow - ring-barrow and Habitation site
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 633344m, N 895991m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.810732, -7.481286
Strabane is a small market town on the banks of the Mourne River in west County Tyrone. The main north-west route to and from Londonderry passes through the town. It was decided that a bypass would be built to ease the traffic. This report covers the final part of the bypass. It is to be built largely on the bed of the former permanent way of the now defunct Great Northern Railway line to Londonderry. For archaeological purposes this phase was divided into four sections: Section 1 was from Orchard Road to Strahan’s Road; Section 2 from Strahan’s Road to Urney Road; Section 3 from Urney Road to Bradley Way; and Section 4 from Melmount Road to Orchard Road.
During the excavation the remains of a ring-barrow, an area of possible Neolithic activity and several possible hearths were revealed.
The hearths were uncovered in Section 1, mainly at its northern end. They all appeared as small, circular cuts in the natural sand. There was evidence of in situ burning in some. No artefacts were recovered, and no dates are currently available.
The ring-barrow was uncovered at the east of Section 1. When cleaned, the feature appeared as a light grey, sandy, stony circle in the surrounding natural. The ground around this part of Section 1 had been very heavily disturbed, truncating the ring-barrow and leaving only the inner ditch and the basal layer of the internal platform. The feature measured 6.1m north–south by 5.6m. The ditch cut was roughly U-shaped in section, with a maximum depth of 0.35m; it was 0.6–0.9m deep. One small piece of possibly struck flint, the only find, was recovered from the ditch. No dates are yet available from samples taken, but the feature probably dates to the Late Bronze Age.
In the south of Section 3 an area of charcoal-rich soil was uncovered. On excavation, this expanded to an area measuring 8.6m north–south by 4.8m. Several pits and gullies with charcoal-rich fills were uncovered.
Before the modern river schemes to relieve the flooding of the River Finn were implemented, the topographical evidence indicates that the river came right up to this site. The immediate topography suggests that there was a small inlet immediately to the east of the site. A possible explanation for the siting of the archaeology is that it represents a small riverside encampment. No dating evidence is yet available, but two sherds of Neolithic pottery were recovered from one of the upper fills.
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