2025:639 - 20 and 21 Castle Street, Abbeyquarter South, Sligo, Sligo

Monitoring of groundworks at 20 and 21 Castle Street in Sligo Town, was carried out between 3 and 5 June 2025. The project consisted of the refurbishment and extension of two existing retail units with upper storey residential accommodation. The monitoring was carried out as part of the planning process.

The proposed development was located on the south side of Castle Street, near its junction with Teeling Street in Sligo. Numbers 20 and 21 are both terraced single-bay three-storey smooth-rendered shops with residences over, built around 1825. The site of the proposed development was an open yard to the rear of the terraced buildings. A number of modern outhouses, which stood in the yard, were demolished over 10 years previously.

The development site was subject to testing by the writer in August 2013, under Excavation Licence no. 13E0284.  Three test trenches were excavated. They revealed walls, mortar floors, cobbles and a culvert which were dated to the 19th century. A wig curler (Find no. 13E0284:4:1) was also found in a context containing modern artefacts.

The groundworks entailed reduction in levels for the foundations of the extension. The area excavated measured 6.5-7m east-west by 5.9-6.25m and was reduced by 0.45-0.65m.

The stratigraphy encountered during the monitoring of groundworks was a modern concrete surface, above a disturbed layer, above natural subsoil. Only modern artefacts were recovered. A number of modern services crossed the area excavated.  The stratigraphy indicated 19th- and 20th- century disturbance associated with the existing buildings, both extant and demolished, on the site. Nothing of archaeological significance was in evidence.