2019:106 - Carrowmore, Sligo

A programme of test trenching was undertaken on a site at Carrwomore, Co. Sligo, with the nearest archaeological site to the proposed works in a field to the south, where a monument is recorded in the County Sligo RMP. This monument, a ring-barrow (SL014-114), is located c. 40m to the south of the southern edge of the site. The testing was undertaken on behalf of a potential purchaser with the intent of building a dwelling house on the site. No archaeological remains/features were uncovered.

There was a distinct variation in the natural soil composition on the site; two test trenches (Nos 5 and 6), as well as most of Trench 4, had a different natural deposition at the base of the trench to the other trenches, comprising a dark orange/brown sandy gravelly clay. In the other trenches the natural deposition comprised of grey/brown stony sandy gravels and in some instance was bonded with an orange sandy clay. Very light traces of cultivation were found in the northern end of Trench 4. In this same trench was a deep deposit of topsoil at its southern end. The north-west end of Trench 1 had a buried peaty topsoil at a depth of 0.37m below ground level. Along the western end of Trench 3 modern dumping had occurred, sealing an earlier topsoil at a depth of 0.4m below ground level similar to that recorded in Trench 1. Denoted on the 1st edition OS map (1837) are five/six houses which flanked the west side of the site, fronting the public road. These houses occupied a large plot, the south-west quadrant of a much larger field, and it is very likely this plot would have been the site of gardens, thus accounting for the well-worked, buried topsoil/garden soil in the north-west and west end of Trenches 1 and 3 respectively.

17 Staunton Row, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary