County: Meath Site name: Navan
Sites and Monuments Record No.: ME025–044 Licence number: E002336
Author: Stuart Halliday, Arch-Tech Ltd, 32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2.
Site type: Possible town wall
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 686982m, N 767839m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.653083, -6.684202
Monitoring was carried out in 2006–7 during the laying of a broadband telecom network in Navan, Co. Meath. The broadband works consisted of mechanically excavating trenches measuring c. 1m deep and less than 1m wide, generally situated along the sides of roads. All works which took place within the historic centre of Navan town (ME025–044) were subject to monitoring. This corresponds to the estimated area of the medieval walled town of Navan and areas of potential late-medieval development outside the walls to the south-west, south and north.
The monitoring programme identified two truncated walls, both oriented north–south, at the base of Timmons Hill near the Boyne. The larger measured at least 2.4m in width and perhaps up to 5m, and at least 5m in depth. Construction was of large limestone blocks (up to 0.85m by 0.6m by 0.5m) bonded with a coarse sand creamy mortar with crushed-shell aggregate. The large size of the wall may suggest it formed part of the Navan town wall, the original course of which is unclear. Elsewhere, no remains of archaeological significance were identified, probably due to disturbance from previous phases of service laying and maintenance.
