2013:330 - Church Row, Kilrea, Derry

Test trenching of the site was requested in advance of development. Trench 1 was situated parallel to the northern boundary; it measured 15.5m long by 1.5m wide by 0.25-0.8m deep, running south-west to north-east. The topsoil measured 0.25m deep across the whole of the trench, underlying this for 12m of the test trench was a layer of rubble which contained pottery dating from the late 18th to 21st century; there was also plastic, lead and wood within the rubble suggesting that this layer resulted from the demolition of buildings previously on the site and that these buildings were lived in from the late 1700s until at least the 20th century. At the southern end of the test trench was the corner of a building, this was not unexpected as there had been structures on the site at this location from prior to the second edition OS map in 1851 until at least 1954.

Wall 1 ran parallel to the road at the south-west end of the site, it measured 0.6m wide by 0.3m deep and a minimum of 1.5m long although it continued outside the test trench to the north-west and south-east. The remains of the wall consisted of two courses of stones, both courses measured 0.14m deep with a gap of 0.02m between them. Overlying the top of the stones was a thin layer of cream lime mortar; this mortar was not present between the foundation stones. A layer of grey clay which ran under Wall 1 for 1.2m; the outer side of the wall was not investigated because it would have been very close to a possible BT line which appeared to run along the front of the property. The clay appeared to be water deposited and may be an old water course; there were no artefacts or any organic remains within the clay and it did not appear in Trench 2.

Wall 2 was at right angles to and abutted Wall 1 on the north-western side of Trench 1; it measured a minimum of 0.5m wide, 1.2m long by 0.28m deep. There was only one course of the wall remaining which consisted of four large stones; no mortar was visible between the stones but there was a thin layer of lime mortar on the top of them. The walls sat on top of the subsoil rather than being dug into it. Lying up against Wall 2 was a piece of green bottle glass, the base of a bottle which dates to the end of the 18th century.

Trench 2 was 8m south of Trench 1, it measured 15m long by 1.5m wide by 0.22-0.35m deep and ran south-west to north-east. The rubble layer that was in Trench 1 was not found in Trench 2; neither was Wall 1 or the grey clay layer. The original topsoil was 0.22m deep, in the central section of the trench there was a dump of topsoil on top of the grass which added 0.17m to the depth. Pieces of pottery from the topsoil were similar to those recovered from Trench 1, dating from the late 18th to the 20th century.

Northern Archaeological Consultancy Ltd, Farset Enterprise Park, 638 Springfield Road, Belfast, BT12 7DY