2007:154 - Clare Castle, Clare Commons, Clare

Some pre-development test-trenches were excavated here in advance of a mixed commercial and residential development. The field is part of the former flood-plain of the River Fergus and an existing drain was shown as ‘an old mill-stream’ on an 1832 hydrographic map. Fragments of broken red brick possibly associated with the last work phase on Clare Castle, together with modern glass and pottery, were recovered, but not in any context. Many of the trenches were subject to tidal flooding and many contained immobile limestone outcrop.
Three separate 10m-long sections of the mill-race were excavated to boulder clay and provided no finds or evidence of enclosing stonework. This mill-race is delimited at ground level today by a drystone modern wall.