Artefacts and chamber found at A26

Historical artefacts, including a knife, arrow head and an underground chamber, have been unearthed at the A26 Frossess Road site, Ballymoney.
By The Newsroom
Published 25th Jun 2014, 08:49 BST
Danny Kennedy MLA, Minister for Regional Development (DRD), pictured with archiologiists in Cloughmills. INBM26-14 KENNEDYDanny Kennedy MLA, Minister for Regional Development (DRD), pictured with archiologiists in Cloughmills. INBM26-14 KENNEDY
Danny Kennedy MLA, Minister for Regional Development (DRD), pictured with archiologiists in Cloughmills. INBM26-14 KENNEDY

Delivering a Roads Service progress report at Riada House last Monday, councillors heard that the Investment Delivery Plan (IDP) for Roads includes dualling of seven kilometres of the A26 Frosses Road between Glarryford crossroads and Drones Road.

The report explained: ‘The Department took ownership of the land required to build the scheme in January. Enabling works to remove hedges - in Northern Ireland trimming or removal of hedges is prohibited between 1 March and 31 August each year - is complete and temporary fencing has been erected on the boundary of the land required for the new road. At the same time, archaeological trenching has been carried out to identify potential archaeological features along the route of the new road and to allow these to be examined and resolved ahead of construction of the new road. 352 trenches have been excavated, revealing artefacts from the Mesolithic Period (which came to an end around 4000BC), several flint artefacts from 3000BC to 4000BC and an early medieval (800AD) souterrain (an underground chamber or passage).

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‘A number of contractors are currently preparing tenders and it is expected that a contractor will begin construction of the scheme later this year. Construction of the £65 million scheme will take about 2 years to complete.’