2022:722 - Trim Library and Cultural Centre, Townparks North, Trim, Meath

Archaeological monitoring and limited excavation were carried out at the site of Trim Cultural and Arts Centre, Trim Library, High Street, Trim, Co. Meath. All these works have revealed a site with multiple phases of activity often located deep under existing ground levels.

The earliest phase is associated with the first period of Anglo-Norman settlement in the town and possibly earlier. It consisted of a substantial ditch with a distinctive peaty clay fill identified in previous test excavations by the author (see 2019:245) and partially excavated by C. Walsh in advance of the initial development of the library building in 1987 (1987:42).

The ditch was succeeded by a substantial masonry structure, perhaps 15m square with an associated 1m wide, parallel boundary wall. Pottery retrieved from within the walls dated it to the 12^th or 13^th centuries. It is tentatively interpreted as the surviving basal remains of an urban tower house or castle. Several post-medieval structures were inserted in and around the masonry structure/’castle’ before the site was levelled in the post-medieval period. These included cellars and a well, although all appear to have been levelled by the time of the first edition OS map of 1837.

The ESB trench revealed the old roads of Mill Street and the imported fills of the Mill Lane quayside revetment. Some walls and floors of the masonry and brick-built, post-medieval Mill on Mill Lane were revealed. Outside the 'Town Wall' were a series of rampart-like ditches and banks, where some disarticulated human remains were recorded.

The Library development had piled foundations that allowed the remains of the 'Castle' and 'boundary wall' - as well as their associated layers and the 'moat' - to be preserved in situ. The disarticulated human remains outside the Town Wall and the remains of the masonry and brick Mill on Mill Lane were also preserved in situ.

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