2000:0252 - DUBLIN: 5 College Street, Dublin

Monitoring was conducted in the basement of the AIB Banking Hall, 5 College Street, between 2 August and 13 September 2000. The site constituted the final area subject to subsurface works within the Westin Hotel development, necessitating ground reduction by an average of 1m.

The area of College Street was situated more than 0.5km east of the medieval city of Dublin, and at that time the banks of the Liffey stretched as far as modern-day Fleet Street. The first reference to a lease on College Street was that of Mr Burnayle in 1695. The Royal Irish Institute was built on the plot of 5 College Street by Darley in 1813 ‘to promote fine arts’ and was demolished in the mid-19th century to make way for the new Provincial Bank of Ireland, designed by William Barnes and constructed in 1862. It was later to become the AIB Banking Hall and is now to be incorporated into the Westin Hotel development.

During the demolition of the Royal Irish Institute a portion of medieval tiled pavement was retrieved and presented to the Royal Irish Academy in 1867. There was a possibility that these tiles, characteristic of medieval ecclesiastical structures, had been in situ on discovery. Therefore, further evidence of a medieval structure, possibly associated with the 12th-century St Clement’s chapel or St Mary de Hogges, potentially remained beneath the building. No medieval archaeology was encountered during monitoring, and it is probable that the tiles had been imported to the site within river silt.

Ground reduction revealed evidence of the successive phases of construction, which were carried out on the site since its reclamation at some stage in the 17th century. The earliest phase represented was that prior to 1795, where it can be seen on Rocque’s map that an open plot of land existed to the rear of the building. A feature uncovered in that location was orientated along the same north-west/south-east axis and was stratigraphically contemporary. This consisted of a rectangular pit, 1.62m by 1.14m and 0.27m deep, with a hard, watertight floor surface. It was lined with mortar-bonded stones, which formed an inward step on the south-west side leading towards an oval pit, north within the feature. It may have been a sunken garden feature with a step leading towards a small pond. Possibly also dating to this period was a wooden box-like feature, 0.55m by 0.60m, set into a water-sealant clay, which must have been designed to contain liquid of some sort.

Wall foundations and floor surfaces overlying these features were dated to the 1813 Royal Irish Institute and were cut directly into the black alluvial deposit underlying the site. The later Provincial Bank of Ireland was built on much firmer, solid foundations, and the orientation was altered from north-east/south-west to north–south.

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