County: Wicklow Site name: BACHELOR’S WALK, Wicklow
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 25:12 Licence number: 00E0122
Author: James Eogan, ADS Ltd.
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 731322m, N 693834m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.979156, -6.044456
This site, which fronts onto the Leitrim River, is within the zone of archaeological potential of Wicklow town. Planning permission has been granted for the construction of a terrace of three three-storey townhouses to the rear of an existing property. A condition in the grant of planning permission required the developer to employ a licensed archaeologist to make an assessment of the proposed development.
The site is 130m south-east of excavations carried out in 1997, by Cia McConway and the writer, on the site of Wentworth House (Excavations 1997, 201–2, 97E0118). These excavations uncovered the remains of medieval rubbish pits and boundary ditches. The site is 250m east of the site of the medieval Franciscan friary. Cartographic sources indicate that Bachelor’s Walk was not developed until the latter part of the 19th century.
Two test-trenches were excavated by a JCB using a 4-ft toothless bucket. The trenches were excavated to undisturbed natural gravel. The surface of the gravel sloped west–east towards the river. A shallow linear feature was found cut into the natural gravel in Test-trench 1. This feature is most likely to be the remains of a boundary (a property boundary is shown in this position on the first edition (1839) Ordnance Survey map of this area); a sherd of transfer-printed earthenware was found in the fill of this feature. A single sherd of locally made, wheel-thrown medieval cooking ware was found in a layer of stony, brown, silty clay, which overlay the gravel; this deposit also contained 19th-century pottery, fragments of red brick and a clay pipe bowl. It may have been brought in to level up the site at the time of its development in the 19th century. Two walls uncovered relate to the development of the site in the 19th century.
No significant archaeological remains were uncovered in the test excavation. While the site is in the vicinity of medieval settlement activity, it was probably on the fringes of the urban area and appears to have been used as agricultural land until the 19th century.
Windsor House, 11 Fairview Strand, Fairview, Dublin 3
