1996:077 - DUBLIN: Bleeding Horse Inn, Camden Street Upper/Charlotte Street, Dublin

Archaeological test-trenching in advance of a hotel development was carried out in late November 1996. The proposed development is to include basement car-parking, which will necessitate the removal of soil to a depth of approximately 4–5m below present ground level. The site is located on the east side of Camden Street Upper and immediately south of a public house known as the Bleeding Horse Inn.

An inn is known to have been located here in the seventeenth century, and for this reason the archaeological condition was attached. Six test-trenches were excavated by mechanical digger and in five of them no finds or features of archaeological significance were uncovered.

In one test-trench, that located along the Camden Street Upper street frontage, structural remains of c. eighteenth-century date were uncovered. The remains consisted of a stone wall, with plinth, orientated roughly north-south; the wall was exposed for a length of 9m. Three cross-walls extending east-west from the main north-south wall were also identified. No internal floor surfaces were uncovered and the remains are not thought to constitute part of a domestic building. They are more likely to be associated with outdoor/ancillary non-domestic structures.

A building currently in use which stands adjacent to the Inn is due for demolition prior to the commencement of the proposed development. Further archaeological assessment of this area, when it becomes accessible, has been recommended.

c/o 81 Upper Leeson Street, Dublin 4