2018:130 - 13 Union Street, Coleraine, Derry

The archaeological evaluation, undertaken ahead of the redevelopment of No. 13 Union Street, Coleraine, consisted of the excavation of two parallel test trenches orientated north-south across the site. Prior to the works commencing the previously upstanding large 2-storey commercial premised was removed to ground floor level. The floor slab, which was of concrete construction, was broken up and lifted and the test trenches inserted from the level of the hard core bedding material for that floor slab. The trenches were excavated using a back-acting machine fitted with a toothless bucket. The depths of the trenches varied across the site depending on the depth at which subsoil was reached, but was on average between 0.3 – 0.4m. Across the site building rubble from the demolition overlay a clean hardcore fill layer, which in turn overlay naturally occurring subsoil. This was an orange sandy clay containing occasional small stones.
Three stone walls were observed at 9m, 18m and 27m from the wall to the front of the site; these would appear to relate to a building observed on the 3rd edition OS map, and were built directly onto subsoil. No finds or anything of archaeological interest was observed within their immediate vicinity. No archaeological features were identified within any of the trenches.

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