County: Kildare Site name: LEIXLIP
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0367
Author: Mary McMahon, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 700501m, N 735912m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.363843, -6.490003
Monitoring of improvement works to Leixlip was conducted over a four-month period. The work involved the laying of service cables, water mains and foul sewers and general roadworks along the length of Main Street, running from Rye Bridge at the west end to the eastern extent of the street where it swings to the south and crosses the Liffey. At Rye Bridge the area had been previously disturbed for modern pipe-laying and there was no archaeological stratigraphy.
At St Mary's Church a short stretch of a masonry wall was revealed. A section of the eastern side of the wall had been removed when service pipes had previously been laid, and a service pipe also ran along the top of the wall. However, it appeared to be approximately 0.7m wide and ran in an east-west direction. The present entrance to the church, which consists of a wall and railing, is set back from the street frontage. The earlier wall follows the line of the properties on either side of the church and may be part of an enclosing wall for the church property. Two cobbled surfaces, which were possibly an entrance path or roadway to the church, were stratified below the modern concrete footpath north of St Mary's Church. However, there was no dating evidence for either surface.
A circular stone-lined well was revealed below the footpath on the south side of Main Street, approximately 52m east of the entrance to the Health Centre. It was c. 0.9m in diameter, the lining stones measuring approximately 0.3m by 0.2m. The well shaft was exposed to a depth of 0.5m but its full depth was not determined. From associated stratigraphy and comparable structures it would appear to be 18th-century in date.
77 Brian Road, Marino, Dublin 3
