2006:1654 - TRIM: Haggard Street/Navan Gate Street, Meath

The owner of the site received planning permission from An Bord Pleanála to demolish standing buildings and outhouses on this site at the corner of Haggard Street and Navan Gate Street, Trim. Thirty apartments and four retail units will then be constructed in four blocks on the site. The Haggard Inn public house will remain standing in the middle of the development.

This area of Trim has been subjected to much testing over the last ten years. Haggard Street was one of the main thoroughfares in the medieval town. Excavations in 1999 by Clare Mullins in Haggard Street exposed evidence for medieval walls and street surfaces (Excavations 1999, No. 715, 99E0142). The town wall crossed Navan Gate Street some metres east of the development site; no trace of the town wall or Navan Gate survives there (Potterton, 184).

A series of 31 trenches was excavated. Monitoring was carried out at a later stage when ground disturbance took place for construction of the development.

The three trenches closest to the Haggard Street frontage all showed evidence for previous disturbance, with layers of redeposited boulder clay interspersed with lenses of loose brown clay containing animal bone. There was no evidence for the medieval street surface which was exposed by Clare Mullins.

The remainder of the trenches exposed variations of garden soil on top of subsoil; in some cases the surfaces had been dressed with hardcore to provide a car-parking surface.

Reference
Potterton, M. 2005 Medieval Trim. Dublin.

Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath