2009:271 - NEWTOWNARDS, Down

It is proposed to construct an extension to the A20 bypassing Newtownards town centre, part of which included the construction of a road bridge across the canal and through part of the wall of Castlebawn. As both the area of the canal and Castlebawn are scheduled monuments, scheduled monument consent was required and issued for the bridge construction. Under these terms the canal banks and bawn wall in the area of the breach were extensively recorded and investigated. The assessment revealed that most of the south canal bank and the entire north bank had been heavily altered or removed during the canal improvement scheme of the 1980s. This level of modern disturbance did not extend to the bawn wall and the area of the interior investigated during this excavation. It is highly likely that this is the original 17th-century bawn wall, which was built on top of marginal ground, and the ground level was subsequently raised to its current level soon after the wall was constructed. There was limited evidence of 17th-century activity to the immediate south of the wall, and there was a slight indication of medieval activity, with the retrieval of a small quantity of medieval sherds of pottery from a ditch along the north face of the wall, which would be expected given the close proximity of the ruins of the Dominican priory (DOW006–018).