2010:219 - Old Newry Road, Loughbrickland, Down

The proposed development entails the construction of 26 semi-detached and three detached residential dwellings at Old Newry Road, Loughbrickland, Co. Down. It is located in an archaeologically sensitive landscape with seventeen recorded sites within a 1.5km radius. The closest recorded sites to the proposed development are a bivallate rath (DOW033–019), which is located on a ridge approximately 450m to the north-north-east, and a megalithic tomb (DOW034–018) located approximately 575m to the north-west of the proposed development.
The village of Loughbrickland itself is considered an archaeologically sensitive area. It dates to the late 16th century when, in 1585, Queen Elizabeth I granted the area to Sir Marmaduke Whitchurch, who built a castle (DOW034–077) on a strategic spot on the shore of Loughbrickland Lough which guarded a pass where three roads met. The Annals of Four Masters stated that, in 1424, the Magennises of Loch Bricren had a castle at the lough and this was destroyed by the Earl of Ormond. This castle may have been formerly located where Sir Marmaduke built his fortification. The village of Loughbrickland was founded to the north-east of this castle and consisted of a church and a mill.
Investigations took place in February 2010 and two excavation areas were opened targeting features encountered during the 2009 evaluation (Excavations 2009, No. 268).
Area 1 comprised a 10m by 10m area, which was opened up around the charcoal-rich pit encountered in evaluation Trench 5. Although the pit fill was very rich in charcoal, its base did not show any signs of in situ burning. It is likely that the feature represents a small refuse pit. A few other features in the area were also investigated but they turned out to be caused either by modern truncation in the form of general construction rubbish burial or tree-root action.
Area 2 comprised a large area exposing the extent of the gully encountered in evaluation Trenches 2, 3 and 4. The opened area measured approximately 57m by 10m in size and followed the gully diagonally across the western side of the northern field. One-metre-wide box-sections were excavated through the fills of the gully at 4–5m intervals. The sections produced no finds, but the fills were sampled in order to attain a date for the feature. The gully does not align with any of the historical maps and may represent an early field boundary that had a double function of draining the higher arable land by directing excess water towards the lower marshy ground.
Several potential features in the area were also investigated. They, however, turned out to be natural discoloration within the subsoil and were non-archaeological in origin.