1998:699 - WICKLOW: Church Street/Wentworth Place, Wicklow

The development site lies at the corner of Church Street and Wentworth Place, Wicklow, and is within the zone of archaeological potential for the town. Recent excavations by James Eogan in an adjoining property (Excavations 1997, 202, 97E0118) identified a series of medieval pits and two shallow ditches.

Test-trenching was carried out by Una Cosgrave and involved the mechanical excavation of two trenches (No. 698, Excavations 1998). Limited archaeological deposits consisting of a light brown, fine, sandy clay with occasional charcoal flecking were recorded in both trenches. No datable material was recovered from this layer.

Given the identification of potentially significant deposits revealed during the test-trenching programme, Dúchas The Heritage Service recommended the archaeological monitoring of all further subsurface works.

Monitoring took place over two days and revealed the same formation processes of modern rubble and gravels sealing rubble layers containing red brick as identified in the test-trenching programme. The potentially archaeologically significant clay with occasional charcoal flecking was revealed in the north-eastern corner of the site. However, as excavation for foundation trenches only proceeded to a depth of c. 0.65m in this area, only the top 50mm of this layer was exposed. As this layer was only revealed in a 1m-long east–west foundation trench, it was not possible to define fully its extent, character and condition. There would be no further disturbance caused to this layer by the development. No datable material was recovered, and no further archaeological features or finds were revealed.

8 Dungar Terrace, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin