2024:414 - Woodlawn Crescent, Aderavoher, Easky, Sligo

Sligo County Council (SCC) propose a Part VIII Planning Application for 8 housing units at Woodlawn Crescent, Easky, Co. Sligo. Although there are no known upstanding sites of cultural heritage interest within the red line boundary of the subject site, there is a building recorded on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH), immediately to the east and another across the road. Both are also on SCC’s record of protect structures (RPS). In addition there was a building, Ivy House, within the site, recorded on the Ordnance Survey (OS) map of c.1913 and a small rectangular building fronting out onto the main road, recorded on the OS map of 1837. As a result, SCC commissioned an archaeological impact assessment to be undertaken as part of the Part VIII planning process, which recommends, subject to the approval of the heritage authorities, a phase of pre-development archaeological investigations in the form archaeological test trenching. This was carried out on 14 November 2024. Three test trenches were opened across the site, Trench 1 and 2 at the south end of the site and Trench 3 running across the northern end of the development area, covering the footprint of Ivy House. Nothing of archaeological interest was noted in the area of Trench 2, the western side of the site. The linear feature noted at the northern end of Trench 1 is readily interpreted as the line of the garden wall recorded on the OS map of c.1913, running east-west to the south of Ivy House. The results of Trench 3 suggested that the demolition process around Ivy House was comprehensive with the building demolished down to ground level and in places below, with the majority of building stone removed off site in the process. The trench revealed that what remained on site was a thick deposit of shattered building rubble and soil. The results of the testing indicated that nothing of archaeological or architectural interest survives at the north end of the site and no further archaeological works are necessary in the area of Ivy House. Similarly nothing of archaeological interest was noted in the two trenches across the southern extension of the site.