County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: Cornmarket
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0239
Author: Margaret Gowen, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: House - 18th century and Town defences
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 714794m, N 733949m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.343304, -6.276069
This site is bounded by St Augustine Street and 14–17 Cornmarket, Dublin 8, and required assessment for the purposes of a planning submission; the site is crossed by the western side of the medieval town ditch on the north side of Cornmarket.
The appraisal reviewed the evidence for the Anglo-Norman extramural town ditch on this western side of the medieval city, adjacent to its principle gate. It assessed the results of three excavations on sites at Bridge Street Upper, the west side of St Augustine Street and Bertram Court. It also included the excavation of test-pits on the site.
The development site is immediately outside the western line of the medieval town wall, straddling the western limit of the medieval town ditch. Clarke's map of medieval Dublin shows the ditch running through the bank building on the proposed development site. One of the most potent indications of the ditch's presence is the position of the structural fault that occurs within the extended bank building (one building is founded on relatively soft ditch material, the other on harder boulder clay). Test-pits opened within the basement of the bank revealed the uppermost, dumped, late 17th-century deposits of the ditch.
St Augustine Street appears to define the extent of the medieval ecclesiastical complex that developed to the west of the proposed development site. There was a concern before the investigation of this site that a cemetery revealed on its western side might extend eastwards. However, this was found not to be the case.
Test-pits opened on the western side of the site revealed no accumulated archaeological deposits of any sort, and the only below-ground remains in this area are the foundations of early 18th-century houses.
Speed's map of 1610 suggests that the northern side of Cornmarket was developed with street-front buildings at that time. Rocque's map of 1756 reveals that the development site had five properties fronting onto Cornmarket and a further two or three fronting onto St Augustine Street. Map-based research and a study of the fabric of Nos 16 and 17 revealed that the development of Cornmarket at the time of the Wide Streets Commission removed the street-front houses recorded by Rocque. However, the below-ground fabric of the demolished basements along the St Augustine Street frontage may be early 18th-century in date.
The development has been designed to retain the bank building (over the ditch) and to use piles in order to retain the foundation layout of the 18th-century structures in situ.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
