1999:092 - CHRISTCHURCH LANE/HANOVER STREET/KIFT'S LANE/LITTLE CROSS STREET/ST AUGUSTINE STREET/ST PATRICK'S STREET/EMMET PLACE/TUCKEY STREET, CORK, Cork

Archaeological monitoring of the Cork Main Drainage Scheme has been ongoing since May 1996. The streets monitored in 1999 that are within the medieval core of the city were St Augustine Street, Christchurch Lane, Hanover Street, Kift's Lane, Little Cross Street and Tuckey Street. Also monitored were Emmet Place and St Patrick's Street, which were developed when Cork expanded beyond the confines of the city wall from the 17th century onward. The trenches for the modern services were on average 1–1.5m wide, with a maximum depth of 2.3m.

Christchurch Lane
A limestone wall interpreted as part of Hopewell Castle (a tower on the medieval city wall) was discovered in Christchurch Lane. The line of this wall was curved. It was exposed for a length of 4.35m and a height of 1m. The wall corresponds with the 'site of Hopewell Castle' as marked on Ordnance Survey maps. Sherds of imported Minety-type and Ham Green B ware, as well as Cork-type ware from a sealed layer abutting the north face of this wall, substantiate a medieval date for its construction.

Hanover Street
Part of the western circuit of the medieval city wall was uncovered in Hanover Street. This limestone wall was orientated in a north-west/south-east direction and was exposed for a maximum length of 1.1m at its east (inner) face. The wall was 2.3m wide and was cut by a drain that was probably contemporary. The east face of the wall was constructed of at least eight courses of regular limestones and was 0.8m high. A 17th/18th-century drain obscured the west face of the wall.

Organic medieval layers in Hanover Street contained worked leather, Ham Green B ware and Saintonge green-glazed ware. These deposits occurred directly inside the city wall and also at the east end of the street, where they were associated with the scant remains of masonry and wooden structures. The deposits at the east end of the street were at levels that may correspond with excavations carried out by Rose Cleary in 1996 (Excavations 1996, 11, 96E0128) on the southern side of the street, near the junction with South Main Street.

A post-medieval wooden barrel was found cut into a medieval organic deposit directly inside the city wall. The barrel, which may have been used as a cistern and ultimately as a refuse pit, contained organic material including pieces of wood, lumps of mortar and brick, and a sherd of North Devon gravel-tempered ware. The bottom of the barrel was lined with powdered limestone/calcite. Plant fragments in the barrel have been identified as oat grains, which suggests that it had been used to carry cereal before it became a cistern.

Kift's Lane
A 19th-century brick culvert was recorded in the western part of this lane.

Little Cross Street
A medieval wall, orientated north-south, was exposed at the junction of Little Cross Street and Washington Street. The wall had a base batter, and its construction consisted of a face of coursed limestone and sandstone rubble with a clay-bonded rubble core. The minimum thickness of the wall was 0.5m, and it survived to a minimum height of 1.2m. The wall may have been part of a building, such as a house, on this street.

St Augustine Street
A portion of the medieval city wall, 1.13m long, was exposed in St Augustine Street. It follows the line of the city wall excavated by Joanna Wren in 1992 in Nos 81–83 Grand Parade (Excavations 1992, 8, and Wren 1995, 88–90). The wall uncovered in this season's excavation was on a north-south axis and was constructed of roughly squared limestones. It was 2.18m wide, and the exposed east face was 1.8m high. The wall had a rubble core of which the exposed upper surface was bonded with a coarse mortar. There was no evidence of bonding material on the east face. The west face of the wall was not exposed.

St Patrick's Street and Emmet Place
Archaeological stratigraphy in St Patrick's Street and Emmet Place consisted of layers of 18th- and 19th-century rubble that were used to reclaim the waterways that once ran along the course of these streets. Contemporary culverts were also recorded.

Tuckey Street
Vestiges of at least one or two medieval structures were uncovered in Tuckey Street. These remains included at least one possible sill-beam house (represented by three beams) associated with deposits of organic refuse containing wood, shells, worked leather and pottery. Silts from episodes of flooding from the River Lee were distributed between the organic layers. A row of collapsed wattling was associated with a line of posts and stakes at the same level as the sill-beam house. To the north of this wattling were remnants of a floor surface consisting of fine gravel with patches of pinkish-grey clay associated with silty, organic material.

A second line of posts was also uncovered within the medieval layers. These posts were in two parallel lines running for over 4m and ranged from 0.03m to 0.09m in diameter; their length was not fully exposed. They were part of a house wall or a fence and were associated with collapsed wattling. All of these features are probably related and may represent the remains of at least one wooden house and associated fencing. Similar findings were made at nearby Christchurch, where excavations were carried out in the 1970s (Cleary et al. 1997).

These wooden remains were all within organic layers and were probably contemporary, or were constructed within a short time frame. The pottery accompanying these deposits included Ham Green A and B, Redcliffe, Minety and Saintonge wares dating from the 12th-14th centuries. The medieval archaeology was present in the eastern part of Tuckey Street near the junction with the medieval main street.

A medieval roadway was seen above some organic levels in Tuckey Street. This road consisted of a layer of sandstone paving stones and an underlying foundation layer of stone rubble. This stone surface extended for 25m. The existence of the road indicated that the trenches for the services followed the east-west line of a medieval lane.

The city wall did not survive in the trenches excavated in Tuckey Street because the building of culverts in the 18th and 19th centuries had destroyed it.

A stone-lined pit dating to the post-medieval period contained gravel, red brick, mortar, animal bones, clay, silt, ash, charcoal and large amounts of post-medieval pottery, including an almost complete North Devon gravel-tempered ware pitcher. This stone-lined pit may have been used as a rubbish dump for a house on Tuckey Street. Other post-medieval features included a street surface (directly above the medieval road) and a wall of a dwelling with a wooden pile foundation.

References
Cleary, R.M., Hurley, M.F. and Shee Twohig, E. 1997 Skiddy's Castle and Christchurch, Cork: Excavations 1974-77 by D.C. Twohig. Cork.
Wren, J. 1995 The city wall at 81–83 Grand Parade, Cork. In M.F. Hurley, 'Excavations in Cork City: Kyrl's Quay/North Main Street and at Grand Parade (Part 1)', Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 100, 88–90