County: Wexford Site name: ENNISCORTHY: The Maltings, Barrack Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 03E0434
Author: Emmet Stafford, Stafford McLoughlin Archaeology
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 697349m, N 639944m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.502197, -6.566130
A series of trenches was excavated at the site of a former maltings and corn yard previously owned by the Minch Norton company. The site straddles the northern limit of the zone of urban archaeological potential for Enniscorthy town.
The excavation uncovered nothing of archaeological significance. The testing exercise suggested that almost the entire site, except those areas occupied by substantial stone-built structures, had been subjected to extensive ground reduction in the past and that reinforced concrete grain bins extended to a depth of 4m below the existing ground level in several areas.
The only point of note is that the natural ground level appeared to drop sharply along a north-south line towards the middle of the site. This drop, combined with a change from shale and bedrock in the western half of the site to mixed clayey sands reminiscent of riverbed material in the east, appeared to suggest that at one time in the past the western bank of the River Slaney may have extended as far inland as the centre of the proposed development site.
Unit 4, Enniscorthy Enterprise Centre, Milehouse Road, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford
