County: Down Site name: Movilla
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/08/132
Author: David Holloway, for John Cronin & Associates, 28 Upper Main Street, Buncrana, Co. Donegal.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 750399m, N 874455m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.595965, -5.672490
An apartment development at Movilla Road, Cronstown, Newtownards, Co. Down, is located c. 40m north-east of Movilla Abbey (DOW006–013), a multi-period ecclesiastical site with origins in the 6th century. Previous excavations undertaken in 1980 and 1981 have shown that the site extended north of the present abbey into what is now a housing estate (Yates 1983; Ivens 1984). These excavations revealed substantial remains related to the early 6th-century church.
Testing (July 2008) revealed uniform stratigraphy across the site. Redeposited brown soil containing much modern building rubble, other modern debris and evidence of burning lay directly over natural orange clay which may have been scarped at some time in the past. A field drain and a section of clay pipe were the only other evidence of past human activity revealed by the testing. No features/deposits or finds of archaeological significance were discovered during the course of testing.
References
Ivens, R.I. (1984) ‘Movilla Abbey, Newtownards, County Down: Excavations 1981’, In Ulster Journal of Archaeology (3rd series), 47, 71–108.
Yates, M.J. (1983) ‘Preliminary Excavations at Movilla Abbey, County Down, 1980’, In Ulster Journal of Archaeology (3rd series), 46, 47–51.
