County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: 45 Francis St.
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 94E0036
Author: Margaret Gowen
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 714917m, N 733690m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.340951, -6.274317
The site lies immediately adjacent to the Church of Nicholas & Myra in Francis St., some distance from the supposed location of the friary of St Francis which has not yet been precisely identified.
The archaeological assessment was carried out during the course of a planning application for redevelopment and was based on inspection of one 10.5m trench opened by JCB along the long axis of the site. The buildings on the site had been demolished and cleared of rubble when the assessment was carried out, but two masonry basement walls were left in situ for examination. These both yielded evidence for the occasional use of bricks in their structure. These were part of the wall proper and could not be regarded as insertions or repairs.
The demolished building was composed of a frontal element and a narrow return on the southern half of the site which measured a little over 6m long. Both these areas had basements. The adjacent area to the north of the return had been cleared of rubble also exposing a 1.5m depth of dark brown, friable, garden soil.
Once the loose soil and debris from the demolished building were removed, the surface exposed was a sterile boulder clay or stony till. This was excavated to a depth of almost 1m in places and remained sterile throughout.
The garden soil to the north of the return contained fragments of animal bone and dated, by the delft inclusions, to the time of the occupation of the recently demolished building. There were no underlying archaeological deposits and it rested on sterile boulder clay. There are no archaeological features or soils on this site.
Rath House, Ferndale Rd, Rathmichael, Co. Dublin
