County: Tyrone Site name: 70 MOLESWORTH ROAD, COOKSTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: TYR029-002 Licence number: AE/11/24E
Author: Kara Ward and David Kilner
Site type: Testing
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 482095m, N 577901m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.940307, -9.714364
The proposed development is located at a commercial property at 70 Molesworth Road on the north-eastern outskirts of Cookstown. The Vion Foods (UK) Ltd factory occupies the western half of the proposed development site, while the remainder of the site consists of open ground. It is proposed to demolish offices currently associated with the factory and to replace them with a two-storey extension to the existing chill storage and locker areas. The existing chills 1 to 5 will be decommissioned, while staff and visitor car-parking spaces will be created in the north-west corner and in the eastern area of the proposed development.
There are four recorded archaeological sites within a 1km radius of the development site, one of which, a standing stone (TYR029-002), is located within the actual boundaries of the site, immediately south-west of the proposed car parking within the eastern area of the development. It will not, however, be affected by the proposed car parking and will remain undisturbed and in situ. Given the proximity of the standing stone, the NIEA: Historic Monuments Unit required certainty regarding the level of archaeological survival at the site and requested that an archaeological evaluation be carried out. This took the form of testing. Five trenches were excavated across the footprint of the proposed car park on 7 and 8 March 2011. Nothing of archaeological significance was uncovered.
c/o Archaeological Development Services Ltd, Unit 6, 21 Old Channel Road, Belfast BT3 9DE
