2016:726 - 54 Station Road, Larne, Antrim

An archaeological evaluation was carried out prior to the proposed demolition of an existing building and construction of a modular building for the storage of building materials at 54, Station Road, Larne. The proposed development is located within the industrial heritage site IHR 5609, which is identified as a timber yard. The timber yard is recorded as such on the 1893 large-scale town plan and on subsequent large-scale town plans of 1906 and 1946 a ‘Saw Mill’ is recorded at this site. A detailed survey of the saw mill as it survives today was undertaken.
Excavation of a single test trench was conducted for the proposed development using a back acting machine fitted with a toothless bucket to the levels of naturally occurring subsoil or archaeological strata, whichever was highest. The trench, 15m in length, was orientated north-west/south-east, and was located at the rear of the old sawmill. The uppermost layer was gravel and quarry dust, which made up the former yard of the premises. It was 0.3m in depth. Beneath this was a layer of larger stones and rubble, with a brown silty loam soil matrix. This layer ranged in depth across the trench from 0.5-0.6m in depth. This rubble sealed a dark brown silty loam. This layer was 0.3m in depth, and contained unstruck flint. Beneath this silty loam was the naturally occurring subsoil, an orange-brown gravelly loam, which is likely to be an alluvial deposit given the presence of a river in the close vicinity. There was a cut into the natural subsoil, which was filled with cement. This cut was evident from the rubble layer, just below the uppermost layer of gravel and was not archaeological in nature.
No finds or features of archaeological significance were uncovered during the course of monitoring.

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