1998:241 - GALWAY: 50 Abbeygate Street Upper, Galway

Archaeological testing in advance of development took place in the backyard of the Panache Hair Studio at No. 50 Abbeygate Street Upper, Galway, in February 1998.

Before excavation the top of a very badly destroyed wall (Wall A) was visible in the north-eastern (back) boundary wall of the site. In this an incomplete relieving arch of roughly worked limestone voussoirs was visible, protruding just above modern ground level. The wall was tied into and contemporary with a further corner of walling that projected from beneath a modern boundary wall on the west side of the site. This segment of walling (Wall B) was partially exposed in Cutting 1 and projected some 0.2–0.22m out from the base of the modern wall built on top of it. The top of the footings of a further wall (Wall C), set at right angles to Wall A, was also visible. This protruded towards the eastern side of the site.

A fourth, much better built wall footing was also visible and ran more or less parallel to Wall A. This wall (D) bisected the site. Fragment of a further putative wall (Wall E) extended from the corner at the end of Wall D and under the modern eastern boundary wall of the site. This latter wall seemed to have been relatively late in date as it clearly incorporated one piece of 18th–19th-century red brick.

Cutting 1 was excavated inside the north-eastern boundary wall of the site in an attempt to elucidate the relieving arch and the extent of the wall that contained it.

Below the concrete was a layer of mixed material containing late 19th and 20th-century artefacts with very large quantities of animal bone. The animal bone was associated with the site being a butcher's premises between c. 1900 and 1980. Also occurring were many thick pieces of Liscannor slab and the occasional naturally rounded stone, which appeared to have been cobblestones but was invariably ex situ. Below this was a mortar floor, 60–90mm thick.

At the north-west end of the cutting, just beneath the low relieving arch, lintels of a drain were uncovered at the same level as the mortared floor. Wedged between the lintels were a piece of roofing slate, a piece of decorated 17th-century(?) glazed ridge tile and some red and yellow bricks. The bricks may date to any time from the 18th to the early 19th century and were clearly building bricks.

The drain was between 1.2m and 1.28m wide and a short stretch of between 0.46m and 0.67m. It was only partly exposed and excavated, and the contents included finds of 19th–20th-century date. Just below the base of a large, mouth-blown wine bottle of green glass occurred, of a type generally datable to between the end of the 16th to the early 18th century. The neck of a wine bottle of similar form was also found embedded in the mortar of the wall above the drain. The drain was contemporary with the mortared floor found throughout Cutting 1 and extending into Cutting 2, where the lime mortar overlay large yellow bricks of late 18th–19th-century type.

The only finds from the mortared floor were a piece of 17th–18th-century North Devon gravel-tempered ware and a clay pipe bowl of Dutch origin of a late 18th-/ early 19th-century date. Both of these finds were found in Cutting 2 among small stones and a very thin deposit of light, organic soil inside Wall C and directly on the mortar floor.

It is clear that the drain and the mortared floor are of post-medieval date, as is the back wall and relieving arch under which the drain flowed.

Cutting (1A) was made into the mortared floor. Below it was a mixture of small stones, building rubble and 18th- and 19th-century glazed pottery and clay pipe stems. There were also fragments of 18th/19th-century ridge tiles. Some animal bone and oyster shells were also found. At c. 0.2–0.22m below the mortared floor was an irregular, cobbled floor of large and sometimes elongated limestone cobbles, generally between 0.15m and 0.22m thick, which post-dated the back wall. These cobbles were much larger than those found at a higher level in Cuttings 1 and 2. They were bedded in a brown clay containing post-medieval pottery and ridge-tiles, North Devon gravel-tempered ware and various 17th-century smoothware and clay pipe stems.

This clay varied considerably, from 0.25m to 0.55m, and gave way gradually to silt and boulder clay, which incorporated builder's spoil from the construction phase of the back wall of the building. This material quickly became water-logged, which made excavation difficult. The lower layer of material extended under the back wall, which was clearly built on estuarine silts and boulder clay.

The north-east wall of the excavated building complex had no plinth, and the maximum depth of the wall below the mortared floor was between 0.65m and 0.79m. At the base of the wall were numerous lumps of limestone. These were hammer-marked spalls derived from waste stone that had been trimmed by masons, possibly those who built the wall. Also found were numerous pieces of trimmed slate, some of which were possibly used in stone-wall building, where spalls were used as pinnings between the facing stones of the wall. Slate also occurred in the layer above but was mainly blue, whereas more friable, schisty slate occurred at this level.

Late medieval pottery found at this level included North Devon smoothware and gravel-tempered ware, Staffordshire plates with red and yellow patterns, white-glazed ware of English origin, imported German stoneware and clay pipe fragments of late 16th- to early 17th-century type. Some lime mortar was also found. Animal bone and oyster shell also occurred. It seems likely that the late medieval back wall of the site was built into deposits of late 16th/17th-century date and that the stone and slate spalls were part of its construction phases.

Later material was also found in an apparent cut made for the foundation of the north-east wall.

Cutting 2, at right angles to Cutting 1, was cut to examine some wall footings, the top of which had been visible before the excavation began. The wall footings that occurred along the middle of the cutting (Wall C) were later than and abutted the back wall. At a later stage the join in the north-north-east corner of the building was plastered over with lime mortar where one of later floor levels (the mortared floor) was laid down. This cutting provided many more details on the various late floor levels found than did Cutting 1.

Below the modern floor the accumulation of late rubbish was of the same type as found in Cutting 1. There was a certain amount of Liscannor flooring still in situ. This was 19th century in date, as some late yellow brick of 18th–19th-century type was found embedded between the slabs. In the cross-section of this cutting a further piece of Liscannor slab was visible at a lower level, which seems to have been bedded in a spread of lime mortar. This in turn overlay the mortar flooring found in Cutting 1.

In places in Cutting 2 it was clear that the lime mortar of the mortared floor overlay a well-preserved setting of red brick. This only occurred in some places and was not encountered in Cutting 1.

On the eastern side of Cutting 2, to the east of Wall C, a series of large granite boulders was partly bedded in hard, mid-brown subsoil and angled slightly from the north-east and towards the south-west. This gave the general impression of an irregular line that may have been an old foundation course of a wall. Much of the line extended beneath a modern boundary wall forming the eastern side of the yard; the line of Wall C seemed to have been built partly on top of the dispersed or partly displaced stones of this wall, and little attempt was made to remove them when Wall C was being built. A 17th-century clay pipe was found at the same level of the boulders, suggesting perhaps that the line belonged to a 17th-century context and may have been a building foundation.