2017:628 - Monaghan Street, Newry, Down

Testing here took place in March 2017. Four trenches were machine excavated. Each was 1 min width but varied in length, between 25m in the case of Trenches 1 and 2, 20m in the case of Trench 3 and 7m for Trench 4.
Trench 1 ran parallel to the north–east/south-west running line of the unnamed lane which borders the eastern limit of the site and was 5m from the inside edge of the present footpath. At the southern end of the trench a wall was noted which appeared to consist of block and cement and was roughly 0.5m thick. Immediately to the north undisturbed natural, a dark grey glacial till, was noted at a depth of 2.75m OD. This was overlain by some 0.5m of building rubble, red brick, glass and modern 20th-century glass and ceramics and this in turn was overlain by some 0.25m of deposits associated with the construction of the car park which covers all of the proposed development area. This general profile was noted for the first 5m of the trench. Beyond this and for the remainder of the test trench to the north, significant disturbance in the form of concrete culverts, pipe work and other assorted modern intrusions had disturbed the ground to a depth of at least 2m OD.
Trench 2 was opened some 23m from and ran parallel to the line of Trench 1. At its southern end, undisturbed natural, in the form of a dark grey firm glacial till, was noted at a depth of c. 2.5m OD. This was overlain by some 0.5m of rubble and material associated with the construction of the car park. Some 1.5m from the south end of the trench a wall ran diagonally across the line of the trench. The wall was composed of a mixture of block and cement and was some 0.5m thick to the east of which was a rubble and red brick fill and to the west, a layer of redeposited natural soil. The rubble fill was excavated to a depth of some 2m OD and this revealed a tiled surface consisting of 0.3m square slate tiles laid in a brick bond pattern. This floor surface extended the full remaining length of the test trench. The junction between the wall and the floor was examined at the south end of the trench, and it was clear that both were contemporary. The wall was finished in a smooth concrete plaster finish, with some evidence that it may have been coloured, possibly in a light shade of green. The opposite or ‘external’ side of the wall was also examined. Here it was noted that the undisturbed natural noted at the south end of the trench was at least 0.5m above the level of the tiled floor, indicating that the wall and floor had originally been excavated into the natural subsoil to some considerable depth.
Trench 3 was excavated running perpendicular to the line of Trench 2, some 10.5m from its northern end. Here, at a depth of 2m OD, the slate floor was uncovered. It ran for a distance of 5m where it abutted against a 0.5m thick wall running diagonally across the line of the trench. The inside, east-facing wall was covered in a cement plaster and was composed of block and cement. Its line would suggest that it is a continuation of the wall uncovered at the south end of Trench 2. Undisturbed natural was noted at a depth of 2.5m OD to the west of the wall, once again suggesting that the wall and tiled floor had originally been excavated into the natural subsoil to some considerable depth.
Trench 4 only extended for a distance of 5m, due to the presence of a pipeline running east-west across the northern end of the development area. The only features of note uncovered here were the east-west line of a 0.5m thick block and cement plastered wall, at the base of which, at a depth of 2m OD was a slate tiled floor.
The four trenches opened across the site each produced evidence for walls of a similar form. All were some 0.5m thick and were constructed from block and cement, with the examples in Trenches 2, 3 and 4 plastered on the internal face and also in these three trenches were the associated remains of a slate tiled floor laid in a brick bond pattern.
The evidence from the south end of Trench 1, the southern end of Trench 2, the western end of Trenches 3 and 4 suggests that the walls and associated tiled floor were part of a structure which was originally excavated to some considerable depth into natural subsoil. Judging by the amount of rubble and general scarping across the site, it is probable that the tiled floor represents part of the basement level of a building.
Examination of the OS 4th edition map for the area shows the presence of a building marked ‘Weaving Mill’ on the site. This is recorded as a rectangular building 175m long and 20m wide, running parallel to the line of the Newry to Greenore railway line opened in 1876. This building is not recorded on the OS 2nd edition but is recorded on the 3rd edition, suggesting that its construction dates to the last years of the 19th or the early years of the 20th century. Overlaying the information from the historic maps onto the present site reveals that the walls uncovered in all four test trenches line up neatly with those recorded by the OS, suggesting that the building uncovered in the testing is that of the ‘Weaving Mill’.
Elsewhere on the site, particularly in the north-east corner, testing suggested extensive disturbance in this area, in the form of culverts, and pipelines. In the areas examined beyond the footprint of the Weaving Mill, to the south of Trench 2 and the west of Trench 3, the evidence suggests that the remainder of the site had been severely truncated with undisturbed natural exposed directly under deposits associated with the construction of the modern carpark.

AHC Ltd, 36 Ballywillwill Road, Castlewellan. Co Down BT31 9LF