County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: 7 Fownes Street Upper/41–42 Temple Bar
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0196
Author: Margaret Gowen
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 715725m, N 733926m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.342894, -6.262091
Archaeological assessment of this site at the corner of Essex Street East and Fownes Street Upper on the Cecilia Street 'block' was conducted between 21 and 26 September 1996 as part of a larger exercise incorporating four separate development areas in the block and four individual planning submissions. This assessment refers to one of the four planning application areas and to the refurbishment of a substantial and well-maintained standing building.
The building is located to the north-east of the supposed location of the thirteenth-century Augustinian Friary of the Holy Trinity. The assessment revealed that the ground beneath the building had been actively reclaimed from the seventeenth century onwards. During the medieval period it formed part of the silty shallows on the river shoreline and was subject to tidal inundation. No remains related to the friary were located in this area. Reclamation involved the dumping of large deposits of domestic refuse and other material onto the muddy flat shoreline. The seventeenth-century date for the reclamation is confirmed by the large quantity of datable finds in the material, and particularly by early clay pipe forms.
These refuse layers have been revealed on other sites, extending as far north as the seventeenth-century quay wall (revealed by previous archaeological investigation at 3 Temple Bar/33 Wellington Quay). Gravels and silts exposed in Area 2 indicate that riverine activity had taken place beneath the reclamation layers.
A second and more detailed archaeological assessment was later carried out inside the standing building. Four additional mechanically excavated trenches were opened between 29 March and 1 April 1996. The results indicated that the dumped post-medieval deposits crossed the entire site and were deepest at the south and shallowest at the east, where the natural ground level was higher and less infill was required. No dated medieval deposits and no structures of any sort were noted in the trenches opened, which crossed the site fully from east to west. During construction, the reduction in level of the basement floor by 600mm was monitored and no new evidence was revealed.
Rath House, Ferndale Rd, Rathmichael Co. Dublin
