County: Meath Site name: NAVAN: Flower Hill
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 03E1352
Author: Ellen OCarroll, The Archaeology Company
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 687332m, N 768119m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.655540, -6.678831
Testing was carried out a development site in Flower Hill, within the zone of archaeological potential for Navan (SMR 25:44) but outside the medieval walled town. The development site is located on the northern side of the confluence of the River Boyne and the River Blackwater.
Five machine-excavated trenches were dug in the yard area of some houses fronting onto Pollboy Street. Four of the trenches ran in an east-west direction across the back of the yard, while the fifth ran in a north-south direction. A stone wall resembling two sides (southern and eastern) of a stone structure was uncovered along Trenches 2–5. The wall ran underneath the standing structures to the west and underneath the lane to the north. It consisted of roughly coursed limestone measuring 0.5m in maximum depth and 0.5m in maximum width. Apart from some animal bone, there were no finds to date this structure.
The trenches located outside the stone structure produced a consistent stratigraphy throughout the site comprising an upper layer of concrete rubble with an intermediate make-up layer of rubble and dark silty clay containing 19th/20th-century pottery and brick fragments. The silty clay probably represents a buried soil horizon. This dark silty layer was sitting on top of yellow/grey sandy natural subsoil. Further investigations of the stone wall will be required to determine its date and significance.
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