2008:287 - Whitehill Park, Enagh, Limavady, Derry

The current development proposal provides for the construction of 133 residential dwelling units with a daycare nursery school and associated car parking and common open spaces. Test-trenching undertaken at the site during 22–30 April 2008 provided some evidence for the use of the site in the past.
Testing works revealed evidence of relatively invasive agricultural works in the form of ridge and furrow rigs, often known as ‘lazy-beds’ and usually associated with potato cultivation, across most of the site and the partial remains of the laneway and garden area associated with the 19th-century building marked on the first and second editions of the OS maps. Portions of old field boundaries marked on various editions of the maps were also identified. Although the topography of the application site and its greenfield nature suggested that the potential for the identification of archaeological deposits or remains should be quite high, the previous use of the site for ridge and furrow rigs is likely to have had a significant impact on the preservation of archaeological remains due to their invasive nature.
In addition, testing revealed evidence of a considerable amount of modern disturbance along the southern boundary of the site and extending throughout much of the south-east portion of the proposed development area. In particular, the topography within the south-west and south-east corners of the site appears to be largely the result of landscaping works within the recent past. The presence of modern building materials and packaging within the layers directly overlying subsoil within these areas of the site and the proximity of the existing residential developments to the south and east of the proposed development site would suggest that construction works associated with the adjacent residential developments have had a negative impact on the southern portion of the site. It seems reasonable to presume that these layers represent an attempt to dispose of construction materials by spreading the material across neighbouring land and reinstating a layer of topsoil. The effects of this appear most obviously within the south-east portion of the site where existing ground levels would appear to be c. 0.8m higher than they would previously have been.
Perhaps the most significant results of the test-trenching are associated with the ‘mounds’ noted during the field-walk survey which dominate the raised north-east portion of the site. Test-trenching works revealed these to be natural features consisting of gravel deposits of no archaeological significance.
Only one archaeological artefact was recovered during works at the site: a portion of a small flint blade recovered during hand-cleaning of a roughly circular deposit, 1.1m in diameter, consisting of a dark-brown clay loam with occasional charcoal flecking. No other artefacts, remains or deposits were identified within any of the thirty test-trenches excavated, in addition to the ‘lazy-beds’, portions of old field boundaries and the partial remains of the laneway and garden area associated with the 19th-century building marked on the first and second editions of the OS maps.