1998:067 - CORK: 7 Coach Street, Cork

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Cork Site name: CORK: 7 Coach Street

Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 74:34 Licence number: 98E0529

Author: Jacinta Kiely, Eachtra Archaeological Projects

Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous

Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)

ITM: E 566904m, N 571990m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.899086, -8.480901

A test-trench was excavated in the rear of No. 7 Coach Street, Cork, to comply with a planning condition. The building is situated to the west of the walled medieval city of Cork, built on two islands in the River Lee. By the 14th century the city had expanded to include suburbs on the banks of the river. These suburbs declined in the 15th century, and the city did not expand again until after the Restoration in 1660. There is no evidence of building in the area of Coach Street until the 18th century. (J. Bradley et al., Urban archaeological survey of Cork (1985)).

A trench, 2m east-west by 1.5m, was excavated by hand in the rear of the building, to a depth of 1.65m (1.283m OD). The surface of a layer of grey/ black estuarine silt was recorded at this depth. Layers of rubble, red brick and an earlier concrete floor were recorded under the modern floor level. Three additional layers of sand, gravel and brick underlay the floor. They included a mix of modern, post-medieval and late medieval pottery, oyster shells, animal bone and clay pipe fragments. The estuarine silt was recorded in the base of the trench. A soil auger was used to ascertain the depth of the silt. It went down 1m, but that does not represent the full depth. The silt included oyster shells, a fragment of a 17th-century drinking glass and some late medieval and post-medieval sherds of pottery.

Monitoring of foundation and drainage trenches has yet to be undertaken.

Clover Hill, Mallow, Co. Cork