County: Down Site name: Donaghadee Boat Club, Donaghadee
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/08/178
Author: Brooke Jamieson, FarrimondMacManus Ltd, East Belfast Enterprise, 308 Albertbridge Road, Belfast, BT5 4GX.
Site type: Post-medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 758827m, N 880076m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.643844, -5.539144
Monitoring of ground-reduction works at the proposed development was carried out between 30 October and 16 November 2008. An area c. 760m2 was reduced by 0.5–1.8m below the current ground surface. Into this deposit a series of 42 foundation trenches and an elevator shaft were cut.
The lowest recorded deposit was fine pale-orange sand which has been interpreted as sand dune material and was uncovered between 0.4–1m below the modern ground surface. Cut into this deposit were several archaeological deposits consisting of stone walls and associated red-brick and cobbled surfaces, which have been identified as the surviving remains of three buildings marked on the OS large scale town plan of 1833.
Building 1 survived as a single course of roughly hewn stone foundation measuring c. 8m in length by 0.5m wide running along the north-eastern boundary of the site, which would have been the fount wall of the dwelling facing onto Shore Street. Building 2 related to a small portion of poorly surviving wall constructed from natural small to medium-sized stone boulders built in a random rubble course set with compact sandy mortar. The portion of wall measured c. 3m in length by 0.55m in surviving height and was located along the north-western boundary of the site. A small area of associated cobbled yard surface was located to the east of this wall. Building 3 was the most intact of all three buildings and was located along the south-eastern portion of the site and survived as a collection of internal red-brick flooring/flagstones, a portion of roughly hewn stone wall and a cobbled yard surface. In total these archaeological features measured 9m north-east/south-west by 8m. The internal red-brick/flagstone floor was single-coursed and heavily worn, having been set in yellow bedding sand. The roughly hewn stone wall was aligned north-east/south-west and survived as one to two courses. The cobbled surface was located on the eastern side of the red-brick floor.
Four subsurface archaeological features were uncovered to the rear of the site and relate to gardening or domestic activity carried out to the rear of the aforementioned buildings.
It appears that the construction of the original Donaghadee Boat Club removed all upstanding traces of the previous buildings on-site, leaving only partial surviving foundations.
