County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: Parkgate Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0217
Author: Christiaan Corlett, for Arch-Tech Ltd
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 713751m, N 734463m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.348145, -6.291537
The site is located on the north bank of the River Liffey and on the north side of Parkgate Street, west of Collins Barracks. It was clear before excavation that the pre-existing 19th-century building had been constructed on an artificial terrace cut into an east-west glacial esker ridge. At the back (north) of the site is a boundary wall, the base of which is about 3m above the ground level of the site and which defines the southern edge of another terrace immediately north of and overlooking the site. Following the demolition of the pre-existing building (the Royal Oak public house), the total area of the site became available for a programme of test excavation.
The front of the site originally had a basement or cellar which extended towards the north for a distance of about 12m, and which had been backfilled during the demolition of the pre-existing building. This cellar reached a depth of about 2.8m below pavement level, and therefore was ignored during this programme of testing. Two intersecting trenches were opened by machine in June 1997. No archaeological features or layers were uncovered.
Trench 1 extended north-south from 3m inside the northern boundary to the line of the basement. It averaged 2.5m in width and 2.8m in depth. It revealed only natural glacial gravels and sandy clays, indicating that the pre-existing building had been constructed directly upon the natural glacial layers, and would appear to confirm that the artificial terrace had been cut into the south-facing slope of the glacial ridge, thereby destroying any pre-existing topsoil levels of archaeological potential.
Trench 2 extended east-west across the full width of the site, but not closer than 3m inside the base of the surviving boundary walls to the east and west. This trench averaged 1.5m in width and 1.7m in depth and once again revealed only natural glacial layers, the upper levels of which had been disturbed by modern building activity at the east end of the site.
32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2
