2007:1545 - SLIGO: Adelaide Street, Sligo

The site is at Adelaide Street in Sligo town at an elevation of 40m above sea level and is within the urban archaeological constraint area for Sligo. This constraint zone is based on the line of the town’s 17th-century artillery fortifications (earthworks only). The development is to the east of and inside the constraint zone.

The proposed development involved the construction of a temporary retail block to the rear of Nos 1–7 Adelaide Street. This entailed the demolition of rear extensions to these properties and the erection of new temporary/pre-fabricated extensions to the rear of Nos 1–7 (total gross floor area 360m2); also the construction of a pedestrian circulation/delivery area and upgrade to the access road off Adelaide Street and all associated services and site development works.

Test excavation took place on 4 and 5 September 2007. Six test-trenches were excavated at the locations of greater ground impacts. In general the stratigraphy consisted of an average depth of 1.3m of a soft, loose black/brown silty clay overlying layers of peat, gravel which lay directly onto a reddish-grey boulder clay which varied to a greyish-white sandy clay. Considerable disturbance had been encountered in this area as various services including a large-diameter sewer pipe had been found in one of the trenches. The trenches contained some modern artefacts, concrete, glass and red brick, the earliest identifiable find being 18th-century glazed blackware.