County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: 41–43 George's Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0486
Author: Helen Kehoe, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Well
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 715811m, N 735256m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.354820, -6.260314
This assessment was carried out between 5 and 7 January 1998. The development site lies outside the medieval town of Dublin as illustrated by Rocque (1756). In 1719 St George's Church was founded on Hill Street, but in 1894 it was converted into an open area. The tower remains standing, and the graveyard is now a playground.
Examination of the site was based on inspection of three slit-trenches running north-south. There was no evidence of any early archaeological deposits; however, in Trench B, adjacent to the Hill Street frontage, a circular blackstone well was uncovered. The well's outer diameter was 1.2m, and it had a depth of 2.8m, but this did not represent the true base owing to rubble infill. Two large, squared timbers, which formed part of the water-drawing mechanism, were floating vertically in the well. A small section of a second, identical-type well and associated timbers were recorded 13m north of the first.
In all three trenches hard, stony, yellow clay was excavated to a depth of 3.5m, at which point boulder clay was found. The general purity of the trench stratigraphy revealed little disturbance of deep ground. The positions of the two wells, almost on the same alignment, suggested their construction in garden plots associated with early 18th-century house structures and indicated that their purpose was domestic.
A site assessment carried out at an adjacent site, Nos 36–37 Hill Street (Excavations 1997, 45, 97E0037), revealed no evidence of any archaeological features or deposits.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
