County: Meath Site name: Kennedy Road, Navan
Sites and Monuments Record No.: ME025–044 Licence number: C000178; E2905
Author: Eoin Corcoran, Archaeological Development Services Ltd, Windsor House, 11 Fairview Strand, Dublin 3.
Site type: Urban, medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 686735m, N 767823m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.652981, -6.687941
Eleven test-trenches were excavated to assess the archaeological potential of this proposed carpark redevelopment. The majority of the trenches revealed no features of archaeological interest and on the whole there was a large amount of modern disturbance and fill material exposed. The main features of interest were exposed at the east of the site in Trenches 1–3. These consisted of potential medieval features, including the possible remains of the town wall.
The possible remains of the town wall consisted of a roughly 6.5m-wide ditch exposed in Trenches 1–3 running in a roughly north to south direction across the site. This would correspond to the west wall of the town as shown on the plan of Navan in the Urban Survey. All the masonry of the wall appears to have been removed at some stage leaving a foundation/robber trench as the only remains, although the ditch could also have been external to the town wall. The highest point of this feature exposed during testing was 0.7m below present ground level at c. 40.21m OD in Trench 1. Other possible medieval features (pits and ditches) were exposed within the line of the town wall in Trench 2 at c. 39.6m OD.
