2025:145 - Cement Road, Mell, Drogheda, Louth

A total of 6 trenches measuring 600 linear metres were excavated at Mell, Drogheda between the 2nd and 3rd of April 2025 under license to Aidan O’Connell of Archer Heritage Planning Ltd. Constraints including self-seeded areas of dense vegetation, an elongated spoil heap and a landscaping dump resulted in the excavation of 600 linear metres instead of the proposed 766  linear metres.

The subject area was originally a greenfield, sloped from northeast to southwest. In the mid 1970s a football pitch was constructed on the field; as part of the construction the entire field was bulldozed and levelled. This resulted in a thick (0.1-1m deep) levelling layer of redeposited natural (F1) being spread across the south and west of the site. A thick layer of topsoil (F2, 0.15-0.2m deep) was then spread evenly across the site. Beneath both F1 & F2 lay the Original Ground Surface (0.2-1m deep) comprising a blue-grey humic buried turf layer, changing to grey-brown in colour towards the base. This, in turn, overlay the subsoil which comprised a mottled light brownish-pink compact gritty silty clay with frequent stone inclusions. Several modern drainage pipes (plastic and gravel) were noted running across the site cutting through F1 & F2.

No archaeological finds or features were exposed during the archaeological test trenching.