County: Armagh Site name: 86 Glassdrumman Road, Crossmaglen
Sites and Monuments Record No.: ARM 031:027 Licence number: AE/15/140E
Author: Stephen Gilmore
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 696514m, N 814551m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.071034, -6.525379
Due to the proximity of this site to a possible Towerhouse and Bawn (ARM 031:027) associated with the O’Neills of the Fews this site was subject to BH 3 Archaeological Evaluation prior to a final planning decision being made. A photographic building survey was carried out on the stone building, currently an open sided building on the site which is described in the proposal as a garage.
One corner of a building was uncovered in the course of test trenching within Test Trench 6, this has been identified as the northeast corner of a building marked on the 3rd edition Ordnance Survey map which replaced the RIC barracks marked on the 2nd edition Ordnance Survey map. A shallow field ditch was also uncovered within Test Trench 7, this also appears on the 2st edition to 4th edition Ordnance Survey maps running towards the northeast corner of the barracks building. Only 2m of this ditch was uncovered and there were no artefacts recovered from within the fill. During the monitoring of all of the trenches no artefactual material pre-dating the 19th century was uncovered.
In conclusion the area of potential development did not contain any unexpected material, all of the features have been identified on the Ordnance Survey maps of the area. The foundation for the proposed new house is on an area of bedrock 0.02m to 0.10m below a gravel carpark behind the current cottage and a small area of grass to the north of that.
NAC, Farset Enterprise Park, 638 Springfield Road, Belfast, BT12 7DY
