County: Derry Site name: Cappaghmore, Portstewart
Sites and Monuments Record No.: n/a Licence number: AE/19/014
Author: Eoin Halpin
Site type: Testing
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 682642m, N 936316m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 55.167232, -6.702929
Due to the proximity of other archaeological sites uncovered in the course on nearby developments, HED requested a pre-development archaeological evaluation of the area. Seventeen test trenches were machine excavated, each 2m wide, evenly spaced across the entire footprint of the development. The trenches were of varying lengths due to the trapezoidal shape of the field. Topsoil was generally between 0.4m and 0.6m in depth and consisted of a friable, dark yellow brown, relatively stone-free clay loam. Many fragments of natural flint were noted both spread on the field surface and mixed throughout the plough soil, however none were worked. The natural subsoil was a light yellow brown stone-free loam clay.
The low-lying south-west corner of the field was waterlogged at the time of the testing, however this may have been as a product of a leaking water service line, which was reported to run along the southern boundary of the field (local landowner, pers. comm.) This relatively low-lying area of the site was also largely devoid of any archaeology, with the exception of the north end of Trench 4, where a possible sub-rectangular slot was noted. It was U-shaped, 0.4m wide and at least 0.3m deep, filled with a dark grey brown clay loam with one or two large stones noted in the fill.
The remainder of the field proved to be archaeological sterile until the ground started to rise towards to north-east corner. There was a distinct concentration of archaeological deposits, consisting of spreads, linear features and possible pits, within the central sections of Trenches 10, 11 and 12. Each of these possible features were defined by a deposit of dark grey clay loam, usually associated with a quantity of stones. However, apart from an outlying feature at the northern end of Trench 12 and the southernmost feature noted in Trench 10, the deposits were charcoal-free. In addition, nothing datable was recovered from the surface of any of the archaeological features noted.
A further phase of archaeological investigations has been recommended.
AHC Ltd, 36 Ballywillwill Road, Castlewellan, Co. Down BT31 9LF
