County: Meath Site name: SITE AAP7, LESHAMSTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 11E0156
Author: Niall Colfer for CRDS Ltd
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 693899m, N 752898m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.517659, -6.584101
Test-trenching was carried out at Leshemstown on behalf of Iarnrod Éireann and Roughan & O’Donovan-AECOM alliance Consulting Engineers. It was designed to assess the archaeological significance of the route of the proposed Pace–Navan rail line at Site AAP7, a point where the proposed line deviates from the old railway corridor within the catchment of the River Skane.
The site is approximately 200m north-west of a well-preserved platform ringfort (ME044-032). A significant amount of prehistoric material has been unearthed at Leshemstown during previous testing by Red Tobin (RedArc Ltd) (Excavations 2005, no. 1212, 05E0628).
The proposed rail corridor at Leshemstown (a greenfield area at time of testing) measured 50m by 300m. Testing was undertaken of an area of 2,100m², comprising 12% of the overall area. This involved the excavation of a single centreline trench and staggered offset trenches excavated using a tracked machine with a 2m-wide ditching bucket. It revealed 0.3–0.4m of soil overlying grey stony natural boulder clay. Occasional stone-filled and stone-lined land drains were uncovered. No features of archaeological significance were uncovered.
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