County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: 3–4 Crane Lane/16–19 Crampton Court
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0483
Author: Helen Kehoe
Site type: Quay
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 715417m, N 734104m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.344560, -6.266663
An archaeological assessment was carried out on 23 January 1998 before the construction of a residential development complex to be built on a pile structure. The assessment was based on the examination of three slit-trenches opened by mechanical digger. Monitoring of the adjacent site at 2 Crane Lane in August 1997 revealed a section of a blackstone quay wall extending in a north-south direction (Excavations 1997, 39–40, 96E0222). It was intended to try to establish whether this wall extended into the present site as it appeared to do.
The initial 3m of rubble in all trenches was of an extremely loose nature and prone to 'collapse'. The remains of the quay wall found at 2 Crane Lane appeared to extend into the present site in Trench A; however, owing to continual trench collapse it was difficult to ascertain this precisely. It is most likely a continuation of the quay wall.
Remains of this quay wall were not found in Trench B, 8m north of Trench A. It may have been partly demolished during the construction of red brick cellars, which continued to a depth of 3.3m in this area. The underlying deposits were consistent with reclamation material, a soft, brown clay with shell and animal bone fragments.
Monitoring of substructural works was carried out between 26 November and 2 December 1998 under an extension to the same licence. Fourteen 900mm and 21 600mm augered piles were inserted throughout the site. The deposits yielded by the piling consisted solely of building rubble-mainly red brick cellar remains-and reclamation material identical with the stratigraphical profile recorded in the previous site assessment. The line of the Poddle culvert was accurately plotted, and a 2m x 2m trench revealed the top of the culvert at a depth of 2.1m from existing ground level. Piles in the vicinity of the Poddle culvert were positioned not less than 1m away from the culvert and from the remains of a blackstone wall uncovered in Trench A during the initial site assessment. The ground-beams were excavated to a maximum depth of 0.5m, remaining within the rubble material.
11 Norseman Place, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7
