1999:520 - LIMERICK: 36–39 Nicholas Street/1–3 Peter Street (SITE K.I.24), Limerick

The site was within the Englishtown, on the east side of Nicholas Street and north of Peter Street. The latter, positioned opposite the northern end of St Mary's Cathedral, was formed between 1840 and 1870 and presumably was so named as it led to Peter's Cell, off Bishop's Street to the east. Nicholas Street was the main street and has its origins in the medieval town.

There were four properties in the site, Nos 36–39 (consisting of two buildings, each subdivided into two units), facing onto Nicholas Street, and a range of three cottages extending down the northern side of Peter Street.

Building 1 (Nos 36 and 37), to the north, was a three-storey, two-bay building, 9.5m deep by 6m wide. The front wall, on Nicholas Street, was a mixture of brick- and blockwork. The rear wall was mass concrete. These units were inserted between the standing remains of two stone side-walls of a late medieval house, the southern one containing, at first-floor level, the sides and part of the lintel of a late medieval fireplace. The sides were finely carved limestone, with the eastern side intact but the western side damaged. It was obvious from the vertical building breaks in the two side-walls that the walls of the medieval house did not originally extend as far as the present street line but c. 4m short of it. Between the two side-walls, towards the rear of the property, were the remains of a vaulted undercroft (Excavations 1994, 58–9; Excavations 1995, 56). The Urban Archaeology Survey also mentions 'a round headed doorway with chamfered limestone jambs in the north wall between Nos. 35/36' (Bradley et al. c. 1989–90, 263, House B). At the rear of the property was another building, of which only the northern gable and eastern side-wall survive.

Building 2 (Nos 38 and 39), to the south, was a two-storey, two-bay building at the corner of Nicholas Street and Peter Street. The original building was 8.5m wide and 6.5m deep. At the rear the northern unit had a lean-to (total depth 3.5m and 1.5m wide) against the party wall with a tiny open space beyond it. The remainder of the area was covered with an extension, measuring 7m north-south by 3.75m, accessed from Peter Street.

The Peter Street range consisted of three single-storey houses (artisan dwelling type), each with a central door and one window on either side. All opes were defined with brick arches set in stone walls. The total length was 21.5m, and they were 5m wide. At the rear, between the house walls and the party wall to the north, were sheds/outhouses. The three houses were at the same floor level, which was at street level at the west end of the street, but, given the drop in the latter, there was a flight of five steps to the footpath at the eastern end of the third house. Both the Peter Street cottages and the building on the corner were built between 1840 and 1870, but Nos 36 and 37 dated to the 1930s.

The recent work on this site, in April 1999, following the demolition of Nos 36 and 37, consisted of a cutting, Cut 9, and limited access to the undercroft. A report was prepared incorporating an account of all the archaeologically supervised work done, together with historical and cartographic research, 18th-century descriptions and a brief inventory of comparative structures in Limerick. The standing remains of the medieval walls were recorded photogrammetrically, and structural analysis by an architectural historian is pending.

Cut 9 was 2.3m east of the front wall, parallel to the dividing wall of Nos 36 and 37, and extended eastwards as far as the mass concrete back wall. There was a possible cross-wall 5m from the front of the property. It was very poorly built, with a layer of soft, cement-like substance with underlying brick, and its total width was 1m. Given its instability, it appears unlikely to have been load-bearing. West of this wall the cut was 2.7m long and 1.4m wide. There was 2m of rubble overlying soft, brown, silty fill with a high bone content. This may be of archaeological significance, although no finds were recovered that could be used to date it. Given the unstable nature of the rubble fill, no further digging was done. To the east of the cross-wall the cut was 1.6m wide and 2.7m long, and the fill consisted of a high amount of large stones, slabs and brick. The base of the back wall was 1.3m below the floor level and was set on a stone plinth from the base of which a cut and carved stone was recovered, identical to one in situ in the mantelpiece.

The dividing wall of Nos 36 and 37 defined the southern side of the cut. To the west of the cross-wall it was of a very poor quality, mainly brick, which curved vertically, possibly because it was vaulted (?cellar). It was 1.6m high. East of the cross-wall it was built with 0.25m of concrete overlying courses of brick. The total exposed height was 0.45m.

Given the instability of the dividing wall, it is unlikely that the 1930s buildings had separate cellars. It is possible, however, that there was a single cellar for the building they replaced, with an arched longitudinal dividing wall. The underlying fill was very loose, which would suggest that the preceding building was demolished into an existing cavity. Apart from the dividing wall with possible vaulting, no other cellar walls were identified, and it was not possible for reasons of safety to make a cutting close to the side-walls. Given that the two side-walls relate to the original late medieval house, if there was a cellar belonging to the 18th/19th-century building it is likely that it was a conversion of the existing undercroft, with an extension westwards, as it would have been structurally very difficult to have inserted a cellar at a later stage.

The vaulted undercroft was initially identified towards the rear of the property, where its eastern end wall was found. This consisted of a blocked arch, with the blocking done in two parts, northern and southern. The wall itself may be original, but this was not confirmed. At the western end the vault, or at least the central part of it, was partly destroyed by the levelling of the area immediately east of the mass concrete wall of the 1930s building, in order to accommodate the concrete floor of their backyards. It was clear from the accumulation of debris here and on both sides of the eastern end wall that it was backfilled with household-type rubbish that, judging by the pottery, was dumped in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The undercroft
It had been intended to record the undercroft. To do this it was necessary to reduce the ground level east of the end wall. The access ramp, first made in 1995, extended from the south, through the existing gap in the property wall at the rear of the last house on Peter Street. It then curved westwards down the centre of the plot to meet the arch just north of its centre point, cutting a thick deposit of sand. The front wall of the building at the rear of the property (on the 1840 and 1870 OS plans) was identified during the removal of this fill. Its base was cut into the upper layers of the sand, at a depth of 0.5m, implying that, once the end wall of the undercroft was blocked, the area was infilled with sand before the construction of the house. This building used the end of the northern late medieval wall as its northern gable.

Visible in the northern section of the ramp was 0.35m of overburden over 0.5m of sand. Nearer the arch, however, was 0.9m of dump material under the sand. This material consisted of brick, mortar etc., with 18th/19th-century pottery, over 0.55m of brown sand with bits of slate and some stones. This fill pattern was also identified when the blocking wall was exposed in 1997. Below this and at the level of the base of the blocking wall (into the undercroft), was 0.3m of debris, including bricks and mortar overlying a layer of cobbles. An area of these measuring 0.9m east-west by 0.65m was exposed in the gap created by the removal of the northern part of the blocking wall. The vertical divide between this and the southern one was central, i.e. under the keystone. The northern side was built with tightly packed stones with some brick and some larger stones. It was topped with three larger stones, and the space between them and the base of the arch was partly filled with bricks and stones wedged in to support the actual arch. It had an internal batter and measured 0.4m wide at the top and 0.5m wide at the base.

To the south the blocking wall was composed of small, loosely packed, unbonded rubble stones. The upper 0.6m was particularly loose; below this the wall was more solid. The total height was 1.9m. Fill obscured the inside face, so it was not possible to determine whether it was battered. Externally abutting the arch, 0.2m south of the keystone, was another wall extending east-west. The top of this was 0.3m above the underside of the arch. It was a maximum of 0.4m high and 0.85m thick and underlay 0.5–1m of overburden. Just east of the arch the underside of this wall had collapsed. There were three to four courses of masonry, but only one survived in situ. Behind this wall was a stony clay, and below it was 1.2m of 18th/19th-century debris, with no trace of any sand. Given its poor quality, it was unlikely to have been load-bearing, and it probably represents the garden wall for the northern property as depicted on the 1:1000 OS plan.

The arch keystone was a piece of red (?)sandstone. The maximum height from the cobbles to the keystone was 1.85m. To the south a single voussoir was visible; the rest was obscured by the garden wall etc. The northern side of the arch consisted of around thirteen to fourteen narrow limestone voussoirs, almost rectangular. Immediately inside the arch, on the northern side, was 0.85m of debris, made up of 0.5m of cindery, black fill containing much 19th-century pottery over 0.35m of building debris, brick, stones, mortar etc. This overlay a brown, organic silt at the level of the cobbles.

The rest of the area was packed with 2.2m high of dumped material, which, judging by its shape, was poured in from an opening in the roof just behind the keystone, where the roof had collapsed. This material extended west for 2.4m and was spread over half the width of the undercroft (2.5m). This volume of the material would have to be removed before the original floor level (the layer of cobbles?) could be exposed. Given the unstable nature of the southern side of the vault, with the hole behind the keystone and another hole further west, it was decided that the undercroft should remain as it is until a proper resolution of the whole site was carried out.

Late medieval house remains
The two side-walls of the late medieval house, i.e. the north wall of No. 36 (31m long) and the south wall of No. 37 (25m long), survived. The walls were 0.8m and 1m thick respectively, and this facilitated any repairs or refacing. The vertical building breaks on both walls at all three levels are evidence for the lengthening of the houses by c. 4m at the Nicholas Street end. At ground level the additional length was built with stone, and the portion facing the street was finished with square-cut ashlars. There was a recess at each level in both houses, also part of the addition. This extension westwards must have been in place by 1840, which suggests that the house was 'converted', in the late 17th or 18th century, perhaps in the Dutch style (Barry 1894).

At the ground level east of the recesses, on both walls, were panels of reasonably good stonework. On the north wall was a very well-defined vertical break, the east side of which corresponded with the base of the straight 'arch' in the original wall. On the south wall the corresponding stonework has either been covered with or replaced by a small fireplace surrounded with mass concrete. The two upper storeys had similar fireplaces. There has also been a considerable amount of repair work, in stone, brick and mass concrete, to the original walls, particularly around these late fireplaces. Where such work was done in stone, it is difficult to determine with accuracy what was original and what has been repaired. Both walls were plastered within the two latest buildings. Where this render was applied to the stone or brick, it came away relatively easily, but not where it was applied to concrete.

The northern face of the southern wall appears to have undergone more intensive restructuring, with large areas of infilled brickwork but only one area of concrete. The late medieval fireplace, probably 17th-century, was found at first-floor level in the southern wall, 11m from Nicholas Street. At the eastern end, at the same level, was a blocked, rectangular through-ope, which is stone on the southern side but brick on the northern. Given the extensive brick repairs along this wall, it would appear that at some point between 1654 and 1840 a large house occupied the corner site.

On the northern wall the straight 'arch', 5m long, started at the first-storey floor level, rising to a height of 2m above it. It terminated at another vertical break corresponding with the rear (east) wall of No. 36, where there was a curved recess. The remainder of the wall to the east was sloped from a height of 8m to 2.9m over a distance of 5m. It continued at approximately the latter height eastward for the length of the plot. There were two blocked opes: one possibly a large window at the floor level of the top storey, just east of the rear, mass concrete wall; and a smaller one further east, at what would have been the top of the ground-floor level. It is uncertain whether these were through-opes or just recesses, but the ope in the northern face of No. 35, mentioned above, may coincide. At the eastern end the face of the wall protruded. This was the northern gable of the house at the rear.

The Civil Survey (Simington 1938) plot information was revised for this part. Reference no. 160 applies to Nos 36 and 37 Nicholas Street, with Dr Dominick Fitz-David Whyte listed as the proprietor. He was mayor in 1629 and 1643 (Lenihan 1866, 153). Reference no. 159, Nos 38 and 39, is described as a waste plot. This description does not necessarily mean that there was not some kind of structure here in the late medieval period. Street frontage was usually always occupied. The length of the properties from the town wall to the Nicholas Street frontage was calculated and found to fall 15–25ft short of the present Nicholas Street line. On the 1870 OS plan Peter Street extended from Nicholas Street eastwards across what would have been plot ref. no. 158, the stone and cagework house. East of the last house on Peter Street it curved northwards to link up with Peter's Cell. This situation lasted until the early 20th century, when it is shown as straight (1938 revision). Given that the dimensions of Nos 38 and 39 Nicholas Street, with their outhouses at the rear, are identical on all plans from 1870, it is probable that they were the same buildings as those demolished in 1995.

References
Barry, J.G. 1894 Report from the Hon. Local Secretary for Limerick. Galwey's Castle/Ireton's House. JRSAI 24.
Bradley, J. et al. c. 1989–90 Urban Archaeology Survey. Part XVII (iii). Limerick City. Unpublished, OPW.
Lenihan, M. 1866 Limerick: its history and antiquities, ecclesiastical civil and military. Dublin.
Simington, R.C. 1938 Civil Survey 1654–56, County of Limerick. Dublin.

City Hall, Limerick