2025:107 - Westown, The Naul, Dublin

Three trenches were excavated in the footprint of a proposed development. The trenches were located along the northern margin of a large arable field where it is proposed to construct a communications tower within a small compound, an access track leading to it and associated cabling below or beside the access track.

The topsoil was a friable clay around 0.3m in depth that overlay a lighter transitional zone c. 0.2m in depth before subsoil was exposed. Subsoil comprised a stoney mottled brown clay. No features were identified in Trenches 1 and 3.

Trench 2 skirted the site of a Recorded Monument, RMP DU004-077 Enclosure, that was first identified by a crop- or soil-mark in aerial imagery, and geophysical survey (Leigh 2024, Licence no. 24R0471) had recorded the signal of the subsurface enclosure ditch. While no geophysical signal of the enclosure features were recorded within the footprint of the trench, the northern and southern arcs of the enclosure should have extended into Test trench 2 if they survived. No features of archaeological origin were identified in Test trench 2, indicating that subsoil-cut features associated with the enclosure did not survive along the field margin. A large area of magnetic disturbance, geophysical anomaly 3, may have arisen due to the construction of a short section of concrete block-built retaining wall along the field boundary. There was extensive root activity and several animal burrows identified in the trench as well as the possible impact from a recently levelled field boundary there that may help explain the absence of any archaeological features.

References:

Leigh, J. 2024 ‘Geophysical Survey Report – Westown, Naul, Co. Dublin. Licence no. 24R0471’. Unpublished report prepared by J.M. Leigh Surveys Ltd. on behalf of Courtney Deery Heritage Consultancy Ltd.