County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: Digges Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0006
Author: Cia McConway, Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 715598m, N 733647m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.340416, -6.264099
An excavation at Digges Lane was carried out over an eight-week period starting in January 1996. The excavation was undertaken on behalf of Dublin Corporation, in advance of the construction of a link road between Mercers Street to the east and Digges Lane to the west. The site as excavated lies in the western half of the proposed road fronting onto Digges Lane; the eastern half of the road was not yet in the ownership of Dublin Corporation. The library of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the halls of residence lie immediately to the north of the site.
Previous excavations were carried out to the north of this site owing to the close proximity of the site of the medieval Mercer's Hospital.
A trench covering an area of some 172m2 was opened up, and the overlying 1–1.5m of post-medieval overburden was mechanically removed under supervision. The trench was hand-excavated to subsoil. Several disused service lines were revealed cutting across the eastern area of the site at a depth of 1.5m below ground level. A water hydrant and several pilings were uncovered in the north-west corner of the trench, all of which had cut into and disturbed the underlying archaeology.
It was observed that the natural subsoil sloped slightly towards the north-west of the trench. As stipulated by Dublin Corporation, this subsoil was hand-excavated to a depth of 0.5m in a wide strip along the centre of the trench.
The excavation revealed a series of medieval pits and gullies of varying depths, which have been preliminarily dated, on pottery evidence, to the twelfth century. The early medieval features were sealed by a substantial deposit of medieval cultivation soils, which in turn were cut through by a large fosse-type feature, probably medieval, which terminated in the centre of the trench. Overlying this was a series of post-medieval layers which had been cut through by a wide, though fairly shallow, linear feature; again the terminal was located within the trench. At the eastern edge of the site, stone and red brick walls and drains were uncovered, dating from around the last century.
Power House, Pigeon House Harbour, Dublin 4
