County: Dublin Site name: DONNYBROOK: Simmonscourt Rd.
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 95E0056
Author: Cia McConway, ADS Ltd
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 717933m, N 731922m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.324403, -6.229710
The site fell within a zone of archaeological interest, lying to the immediate north-west of Simmonscourt Castle.
Eight trenches were mechanically opened up under supervision covering the entire area of the site. Until recently the site had been used mainly as a carpark with a small garden nursery in the south corner. To facilitate the carpark, the area had been scarped by c. 0.8m, which had truncated the various pits and gullies which cut the subsoil.
Trench 1, 34.5m x 1.1m, ran east-west along the south of the site. Immediately underlying the tarmac and cutting both a sticky, silty sterile brown subsoil and the underlying natural sands and gravels were three gullies and two pits. One gully was quite clearly to accommodate an old sewage line while the remaining gullies and the two pits all suggested, by the nature of their fills, a post-medieval date.
Trench 2, 41m x 1.1m, ran east-west parallel to Trench 1. The natural sands and gravels were reached at 0.6m below present ground surface and underlay a redeposited grey sticky clay with shell, animal bone and red brick fragments. Two gullies were located, both of which were to accommodate modern sewage-pipes.
Trench 3, 35m x 1.1m, was located in the southern corner of the site and ran north-east/south-west. Towards the north-east the trench cut through an area of disturbance with concrete blocks and squared timber in section; these had been the foundations for the greenhouse which had stood here until recently. Along the south-west of the trench a homogeneous layer of sandy, yellow/grey/brown clay containing charcoal, red brick fragments, shell and animal bone had been introduced into the site to fill up a substantial hollow in this corner. It would appear that the underlying sands and gravels had been quarried out to leave a hollow or basin which had later been infilled to facilitate the nursery. The date of this quarrying was not determined.
Trenches 4 and 8, both located within the grounds of the old nursery, showed a continuation of this quarried hollow in section.
Trenches 5, 6 and 7 cut through areas of undisturbed subsoil resting directly on the natural sands and gravels.
There was no evidence for activity directly associated with the castle.
Power House, Pigeon House Harbour, Dublin 4
