County: Westmeath Site name: ATHLONE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 29:42 Licence number: 03E1489
Author: Tom Rogers, Moore Ltd, Corporate House, Ballybrit Industrial Estate, Galway.
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 603942m, N 741537m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.423933, -7.940690
Work was completed on the monitoring of the Athlone gas feeder main and distribution pipe within the zone of archaeological potential for the town. Laying of the pipe continued on the west side of the town in Connaught Street, Chapel Street and Lyster Street and on the east side in Custume Place, Church Street and Se‡n Costello Street. In all areas the ground was disturbed considerably by former services, including the recently laid broadband internet cable, which the gas main followed in many places. In the lower parts of the town, such as Northgate Street, the road surface and base lay over homogenous yellow clays, but in the centre, where there is a slight ridge, unsorted sands and gravels were prevalent.
No features of archaeological interest were uncovered, apart from a 1m-wide wall of roughly hewn stones uncovered in Custume Place at the edge of (and possibly related to) the current bridge, and the remains of a possible disturbed wall at the lowest part of Northgate Street. No trace was found either of the Dublin (or East) or North Gate, both now demolished.
