County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: 145–150 Church Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0071
Author: Declan Murtagh, 146 lveragh Rd., Whitehall, Dublin 9
Site type: Habitation site
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 714814m, N 734507m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.348311, -6.275567
Pre-development site assessment and a subsequent four-week excavation were conducted at 145–150 Church Street, Dublin 7, on behalf of Archaeological Development Services Ltd, in March/April and June/August 1996.
An area 14m north-south by 17m east-west was opened for investigation. The excavated area was reduced to 10.5m north-south by 14m east-west after the removal of the overburden of demolition debris on site. This area was further reduced by the high level of post-medieval disturbance, which accounted for over 50% of the area investigated. The cellars and rear yards of the eighteenth-century Church Street houses contributed to most of the disturbance in the eastern half of the site, as did an alleyway of similar date which serviced houses fronting onto May Lane.
The medieval stratigraphy was located above the natural gravel between 4.75m and 5.5m OD. A cobbled surface with associated drainage channel and a stone-lined lime-pit were revealed in the northern half of the site. These features are of possible mid- to late thirteenth-century date.
Although no further evidence of tanning activity was uncovered on site, the Calendar of Christ Church Deeds records that a family called Fychet, who were dyers, occupied land in this immediate area from the mid-fourteenth century until the early fifteenth century.
The remainder of the excavated medieval features mainly comprised nineteen rubbish-pits. The majority of these were thirteenth/fourteenth-century, but there is some evidence of early sixteenth-century pottery from two. The medieval finds comprised domestic refuse, pottery (local and imported), some roofing slates, ridge and floor tiles. There was a marked absence of personal goods.
A large quantity of late seventeenth/eighteenth-century pottery was recovered from the site, particularly from a purpose-built brick-lined rectangular rubbish-pit.
Subsequent monitoring of groundworks during the construction phase on site revealed a layer of disarticulated human remains cut into the natural gravel to the immediate south of the excavated area. This is now included within the area of the second phase of excavation on site, which will concentrate on the May Lane street frontage and commenced in January 1997 under the direction of Rosanne Meenan.
