County: Antrim Site name: Sconce Road, Articlave
Sites and Monuments Record No.: LDY007:046 Licence number: AE/22/046
Author: Eoin Halpin
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 678354m, N 933795m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 55.145285, -6.770908
The proposed works are located at the junction of St Paul’s Road and Sconce Road in the village of Articlave and consist of a residential development comprising 3 2-storey buildings each containing 2 apartments, 6 2-bed apartments in total, on a brown field site 25m north of 6 Sconce Road, Atriclave.
The applicant site is located in an area that has been identified as the possible site for the plantation settlement of Articlave (LDY007:046), additionally, an industrial heritage registered mill race (IHR01391), a monument of local importance, is shown running through the application site on the First Edition OS Map.
As the construction of the foundations associated with the proposed development could have negative impacts on potential archaeology associated with a 17th-century mill complex and possibly other buildings noted on the OS 1st and 2nd edition maps, a phase of pre-development archaeologically monitored topsoil strip, aided by a programme of metal detecting, was proposed.
The monitoring, which took place on 4 and 5 April 2022, revealed that the southern half of the site had been severely disturbed by service lines and other modern developments, with the archaeology of the northern half divided into three separate but related areas. These were investigated in a follow-up phase of archaeological excavation, which took place between 20 and 24 June 2022 under the same license.
The first area of archaeology was the mill race which was recorded on the OS map of c.1830. Investigation of this feature aided by local knowledge suggested that it continued to function as a conduit for water until at least the 1950s. The stone-built ‘culvert’ uncovered at the western end of the race proved to have been constructed as a bridge to take the road which originally ran to the east of its present road line. The two parallel gullies uncovered in the north-west quadrant of the subject site are interpreted as being associated with this older road-line. The T-shaped walls would appear to be associated with the buildings recorded on the site on the OS 2nd edition map, with a likely date of the mid-1800s for their construction.
AHC Ltd 36 Ballywillwill Road, Castlewellan Co Down BT31 9LF
