County: Meath Site name: NAVAN: Darker's Mill, Mill Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 04E0043
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Mill - unclassified
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 687132m, N 768519m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.659166, -6.681743
There were initially two separate planning applications for this site, which had originally comprised an early 19th-century mill building with two associated buildings, on the north bank of the River Blackwater. The buildings were most recently used as a furniture factory. The writer carried out an assessment of the westernmost building (upholstery factory) in November 2003 (Excavations 2003, No. 1437, 03E1751); the standing building was inspected as part of the assessment. Archaeological material was not identified during the assessment.
The writer was asked to carry out a similar assessment of the mill building and a small gate lodge. This was carried out in January 2004. The standing buildings were examined and two test-trenches were excavated. During the summer of 2004 a fresh planning application was made in which the two sites were merged to form a single development. The two trenches were excavated in the courtyard formed by the L-shaped mill building and the gate lodge. Trench 1 revealed that the there was a layer of modern dumped material in the courtyard to a depth of 1m overlying bedrock. Excavation of Trench 2 attempted to establish the line of the tailrace but this was not exposed there.
Material dating to a period earlier than the construction of the mill was not exposed.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
