County: Down Site name: strand avenue, Holywood
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/10/74
Author: Kara Ward and Warren Bailie, Archaeological Development Services Ltd, Unit 6, Channel Wharf, 21 Old Channel Road, Belfast, BT3 9DE.
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 739985m, N 879448m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.643785, -5.831132
This site is located on the northern outskirts of Holywood, Co. Down, within the area of archaeological potential associated with the historic settlement of Holywood (DOW001–043). The site is located immediately south of the main A2 carriageway linking Belfast and Bangor, with its northern boundary lying 125m south of Belfast Lough.
A total of four test-trenches were excavated to undisturbed subsoil levels. The site has been heavily disturbed by modern utility services and former dwelling foundations. There were a series of artificial build-up layers consisting of red-brick rubble, concrete, mortar, quarried stone and tarmac. Some remains of older boundary ditches and drains survived; these are most likely to be the remnants of early 19th- and early 20th-century subdivision and drainage of the site prior to the first buildings here in the 1930s. There were no features of archaeological significance found during this evaluation.
