2007:215 - BANDON: Church Street, Cork

Three test-trenches were excavated at the proposed site of an apartment building in the south-west quadrant of Bandon town. The site occupies an area of level ground that appears to have been scarped out from the side of a steep natural slope located immediately to the north-west. The boundary walls delimiting the north and north-west sides of the development site follow the recorded line of the 17th-century town wall. These boundary walls are in private ownership and will not be impacted on by the proposed development. The development site is located outside the walled area of the town and was previously occupied by a now-demolished terrace of houses.

The stratigraphy encountered in the test-trenches consisted of a thin sod layer directly overlying the natural glacial till. A shallow ditch was uncovered parallel to the base of the northern boundary wall and its fill contained modern plastic. The dimensions of the ditch (0.85m wide by 0.6m deep) indicated that it was too narrow and shallow to be the remains of an external defensive ditch or the foundation cut for the town wall. There were no archaeological features or finds recorded during test-trenching at this site.