1996:087 - DUBLIN: 1 Essex Gate/10 Exchange Street Upper, Dublin

Test excavation in advance of a proposal to lower the basement floor at No. 1 Essex Gate and in the adjoining building, No. 10 Exchange Street Upper, was carried out in June 1996. Both buildings are located at the north-east corner of the medieval walled town, dose to where the Hiberno-Norse and the later, thirteenth-century, medieval town walls are thought to intersect. Eight trenches were opened for the purpose of identifying any archaeological remains which may be present on site. The concrete slab floor was removed by mechanical digger and the remaining depth was excavated by hand.

Although the floor area had been partially truncated to a maximum depth of 0.4m below present ground level, archaeological remains were identified in all eight trenches. The full depth of the archaeological deposits was not established as this was not within the scope of the present test-excavation licence requirement.

The internal face of the thirteenth-century medieval town wall was identified in two test-trenches in No. 1 Essex Gate. In one trench the wall was exposed for a length of 1.3m and a depth of 0.46m. The medieval wall was well faced with large limestone blocks c. 0.3m x 0.2m in size. At 0.2m below the wall surface, a small plinth projected 0.09m out from the wall face. The core of the wall appeared to be made up of smaller, uncut limestone, bonded together with a dull yellow/grey mortar with specks of charcoal. The wall thickness extended in a north-easterly direction beneath the party wall of the building and the adjacent structure, No. 27 Parliament Street. During a test excavation in the basement of this building (Excavations 1994, 29–30) the external face of a medieval wall was exposed. If the existing party wall is shown correctly, it suggests that the medieval town wall at this point is c. 2.4m wide. In both test-trenches where the medieval wall was exposed, shell-flecked homogeneous soil was banked up against the wall.

No finds were recovered from this deposit, but it may be part of a substantial dump of 'garden soil' which has been identified on other excavation sites in the surrounding area. In the remaining six test-trenches, a mixture of clay, shell and organic-based deposits was identified. No dating material was recovered from these deposits but they were undoubtedly medieval.

Abutting the internal side of the rear wall of No.10 Exchange Street Upper, a substantial stone wall with batter was identified. It was constructed of large limestone blocks; sporadic red bricks occurred but these may have been inserted into the wall as a repair at a later date. The wall was heavily plastered, and the stonework and overall construction were difficult to see. However, it seemed clear that this wall was not contemporary with the mid-eighteenth-century red brick building which stands on the site today. This feature is most probably part of an external wall, or wall facing, possibly of seventeenth-century date, which was retained and used as a buttress for the later building.

In both rooms in this building a number of large timber beams were used to support the ceiling. One of these beams had rectangular notches cut into its upper surface at regular intervals, which was a clear sign that the timber was reused in its present position. The date of these timbers is unknown, but they may also have come from an earlier, possibly seventeenth-century, building.

c/o 81 Upper Leeson Street, Dublin 4