County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: Marshal Lane (Rear of 138–141 Thomas Street)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 98E0274
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 714397m, N 733990m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.343758, -6.282012
Marshal Lane is marked as 'Crockers St' on the map of medieval Dublin published by the Friends of Medieval Dublin, thus suggesting that the area may have been occupied by pottery kilns in the medieval and/or the post-medieval period; vicus pottorum appears to have been in existence by 1190. There was a gate at the west end of the street, although this lies some metres to the west of the development site. This gate is shown on Speed's map of 1610, but no houses are shown on that map on what would have been the line of Crockers Street. The area is shown as being built up on Rocque's map of 1756 but with no particular structures in the immediate area. The Four Courts Marshalsea Prison was built to the north-west of the development site in 1775.
In testing this site special attention was paid to evidence of kilns, i.e. kiln structures, evidence of burning, waste pottery, kiln furniture etc. Two warehouses stood on the site until recently. They appeared to have been 19th or 20th century in date and were built of brick. Two properties had been amalgamated into one. Four trenches tested the site.
Boundary walls and dividing walls within the two sites bottomed out at 2.8–3m below the modern site level. On the eastern half of the site the fill comprised grey, silty material containing brick fragments etc., while on the western half of the site the fill comprised loose, black garden material, again with brick fragments. These fills abutted the walls, down to their foundations.
There was no evidence in any of the trenches or in the fill of the survival of material associated with pottery manufacture.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath