County: Galway Site name: Milltown
Sites and Monuments Record No.: Vicinity of GA016-124--- Licence number: 16E0020
Author: Declan Moore
Site type: Testing
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 540272m, N 763273m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.615875, -8.902709
Testing was undertaken at a proposed development site in Milltown, Co. Galway. The proposal is to develop a nursing home and four dwelling houses in a green field site that fronts onto the N17, Galway/Sligo Road. The field is in close proximity to a number of monuments including GA016-124---, an enclosure and GA016-016---, a Children’s burial ground. In recent years a large-scale drain with a 20m wayleave was installed through the centre and north-east of the site.
Testing took place on 3 February 2016 and involved the mechanical excavation of ten test trenches across the undisturbed portion of the site. The field naturally dips in the middle with a gentle slope to the west and east. A power line crosses the site to the north. The site is improved grassland that has been impacted on in recent years by the installation of large-scale pipes as part of the Milltown Waste water Treatment Scheme. These works necessitated a 20m wide wayleave through the middle and the north east of the site. The test trenches (T1-10) were 2m in width and averaged 0.3m in depth.
Groundworks exposed largely natural layers of sod and topsoil overlying orange brown silty clay and natural limestone bedrock. There was evidence of modern disturbance to the east and south (imported gravels); no features or materials of archaeological potential were noted. The only finds retrieved were occasional sherds of modern table ware and a single nineteenth-century pipe-bowl fragment.
Corporate House, Ballybrit Business Park, Galway
