2000:0132 - CORK: South Main Street/Hanover Place/ Liberty Street/Cross Street, Cork

Excavation for the Cork Main Drainage Scheme took place within the archaeological zones RMP 74:122 and 74:03401 from May until November 2000. Four streets were excavated, three within the medieval city walls and the fourth, Hanover Place, to the west of the city wall.

South Main Street
The trench for the new sewer system at South Main Street was divided into thirteen units, (1–1.5m in width and 2m in depth) excavated southwards from the junction of Washington Street and South Main Street as far as Christ Church Lane. A north–south-orientated culvert was exposed along the east side of South Main Street throughout the length of the excavation. The culvert was visible for c. 40m. Removal of the vaulted stone roof, along with the east wall, was necessary to insert the new sewer pipe. A similar red sandstone vaulted culvert, of 18th/19th-century date, was recorded in 1998 at South Main Street, north of Washington Street (Excavations 1998, 15–17, 96E0157).

The most significant discoveries this year were the foundations of the front walls of two stave-built houses 4.82m west of No. 15 South Main Street. The remains of House I consisted of a row of seven contiguous, vertically set, earthfast staves supported at the base by a row of red sandstone blocks. This probably represents about half of the west wall of a street-fronting house. The north–south alignment of staves extended for a distance of 2.66m. Allowing for a door width of c. 1m, the overall width of the house is estimated to be 6.32m. This places the house in the larger range of domestic dwellings relative to the 12th-century houses excavated in Waterford (McCutcheon 1997) and in Hanover Street (Cleary, forthcoming) and 3–5 Barrack Street (Lane, forthcoming), Cork. The stave-walled house (II) appears to have replaced an earlier building (I) on roughly the same site. Seven staves and two rectangular posts represented House I. The staves were badly damaged (relative to the adjacent stave wall of House II), as they lay beneath the foundations of the stone culvert. The features are interpreted as representing two houses or two phases of a house built on the same plot in similar style. Neither row of staves appeared to be set in a sill-beam or base-plate. Dendrochronological dating of seven samples is awaited.

Hanover Place
The 1.5m-wide and 2m-deep trench for the new sewer system at Hanover Place was excavated southwards along the eastern side of the street, from the junction of Washington Street to the west end of Hanover Street. Part of a post-medieval wall (c. 9.4m long) orientated north-west/south-east was uncovered c. 20.5m south of the junction with Washington Street. This structure was c. 0.4m below the present ground level and was constructed of red sandstone and limestone bonded with lime mortar. The wall lay directly on top of a layer of degraded black organic material (c. 0.5m thick), which contained a large quantity of post-medieval pottery, clay pipe stems, oyster shells and animal bone. This organic layer occurred in all of the excavated trenches at a level of c. 1.4m below the present ground level.

Liberty Street
Before excavation of the drainage trench at Liberty Street, two trial-trenches were excavated to locate services and ascertain the precise location of the city wall. The city wall was revealed at a depth of 0.8m below present ground level, at the western end of Liberty Street. The full width of the wall was not exposed within the trench. The inner (east) wall face was vertical, composed of random courses of red and green sandstone. The wall was similar to a length of wall exposed at Grattan Street (Excavations 1998, 10).

The drainage works subsequently commenced and consisted of a trench measuring 1m wide, 8m long (east–west) and 2m deep. The ground had been previously disturbed by existing services and by the construction of a stone culvert. Among the undisturbed features were three stone walls, which may be part of the historically known Droop’s Mill (RMP 74:03407). The mill is referred to in several historical documents (Tresham 1828, 182, no. 68; Caulfield 1876, 32, 115–16; Simington 1942, 410). It is also depicted on the Pacata Hibernia map of c. 1585–1601 and on a map of c. 1601/1602 in the Hardiman Collection. The stone walls occurred on the south side of the drainage trench but were clearly not part of a single-period construction because the walls were not keyed into one another. The most intact wall (F43), constructed of slabs of red sandstone and limestone, extended for a length of c. 2m and occurred at a depth of c. 1.3m below present street level. The other walls lay to the north of this, two at right angles to F43 and one parallel wall 0.8m to the south. The large stone wall, F43, was not damaged by the drainage works, but the two lesser walls to the south were cut. The drainage trench did not extend as far west as the city wall.

Cross Street
The trench for the new sewer system at Cross Street was divided into four units, measuring 1m wide and 2m deep. It was excavated southwards from the junction of Liberty Street to the junction with Washington Street. A north–south-orientated wall was uncovered, 8.5m long, south of the junction with Liberty Street and 5.4m west of No. 10 Cross Street. This wall was c. 0.4m below the present ground level and was built on a series of timber piles set into the estuarine clay. The wall was constructed of mortar-bonded limestone and sandstone. It was 0.8m high and c. 1.1m wide and extended in a north–south direction. A total length of 2.25m was uncovered. The full extent of the wall was not visible owing to the existence of modern services in this area. The piles consisted of pointed stakes 0.4–0.7m high and c. 0.1m wide. No medieval layers survived at Cross Street because of disturbance by modern services. Excavations at Cross Street were not fully completed and are expected to recommence in 2001.

References
Caulfield, R. 1876 The Council Book of the Corporation of the City of Cork from 1609 to 1643, and from 1690 to 1800. Guildford.
McCutcheon, S.W.J. 1997 Olaf Street, High Street and Arundel Square. In M.F. Hurley and O.M.B. Scully (eds), Late Viking Age and medieval Waterford excavations 1986–1992. Waterford.
Simington, R.C. 1942 Civil Survey AD 1654–56, County of Waterford. Dublin.
Tresham, E. 1828 Rotulorum Patentium et Clausorum Cancellariae Hiberniae Calendrium Hen II–Hen VII. Dublin.

City Hall, Cork