County: Antrim Site name: Lidl, Carrickfergus
Sites and Monuments Record No.: ANT054:031 Licence number: 22/E/034
Author: Eoin Halpin
Site type: Urban - no archaeology found
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 740147m, N 886961m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.711187, -5.825028
The proposed development is located to the west of Carrickfergus, approximately 1km from the historic core settlement of the town. It lies in an archaeologically sensitive area with the ecclesiastic site of the former Woodburn Abbey (ANT 054:031) located to the north-east of the development.
The proposed development consists of extensions to an existing discount supermarket to provide a larger sales area, an extension to the site curtilage to provide additional car parking, landscaping and associated site works.
In their consideration of the planning application HED Historic Monuments noted that the application site was adjacent to the medieval ecclesiastical site Woodburn Abbey and requested an archaeological evaluation as per Policy BH 3 of PPS 6.
Neither the 1984, 2006, 2010 or the present investigations, carried out in March 2022, found anything of archaeological interest in any of the test trenches investigated. The six test trenches opened confirmed that nothing of archaeological interest associated with Woodburn Abbey survived within the boundary of the subject site. In the northern half of the site, up to 800 mm of stone and gravels were laid down on undisturbed natural as a foundation for the tarmac surface. The recording of the thin deposit of clay loam immediately under the stone and directly overlying the subsoil, suggests that the tarmac foundation stone was laid down on an existing old ground surface. The southern half of the site appears to have been disturbed, with the resultant ground overlain with modern builders' rubble, before the foundation stone of the tarmac was laid down.
AHC Ltd 36 Ballywillwill Road, Castlewellan Co Down BT31 9LF
