2001:372 - DUBLIN: Coombe Bypass and Cork Street realignment, Dublin

The line of the Coombe, Cork Street and Dolphin’s Barn is being altered and widened by Dublin Corporation. Archaeological assessment, of the sites then available, was first undertaken in 1993 (Excavations 1993, No. 64). Further assessment, monitoring and excavation took place in 2000 (Excavations 2000, No. 253). Archaeological assessments and monitoring were undertaken along the full length of the south side of Cork Street and a further five sites were excavated between February and August 2001.

Site 1 — The Coombe
A large area was mechanically cleared of modern overburden. This revealed extensive deposits of medieval cultivated field soil. These were removed by hand over the southern half of the site and a large number of medieval and earlier finds were recovered. These layers could not be excavated over the northern half of the site owing to a modern rise in groundwater levels which flooded them. There the deposits were sealed beneath layers of terram and gravel and remain beneath the roadway.

In the southern half of the site many medieval pits and gullies were revealed cut into subsoil beneath the cultivated deposits. There was also a large counterscarp ditch which extended east–west across the western half of the site, beneath the cultivated deposits. It ended abruptly midway across the site. It was defended on its south side by a timber palisade set in a trench. A stone-lined grain-drying kiln was constructed in the base of the ditch in the 13th century.

Site 2 — Graveyard of St Nicholas Without and St Luke’s Church (01E0615)
St Luke’s Church was founded in the second decade of the 18th century. A graveyard developed around it and was in use until the 19th century. A small part of the north end of the graveyard had to be removed to allow the road to be built. Traces of plough-marks survived on subsoil in this area, beneath a blanket of cultivated soil. The first burials at the north end of the graveyard were interred before the north wall of the graveyard was built. A dense concentration of 168 burials and a large amount of disarticulated human bone were removed. The burials were all neatly arranged on one side of one of the pathways leading to the church.

Site 3 — The ‘Abbey Stream’ at Ardee Street
The ‘Abbey Stream’, one of the branches formed by the Poddle when it was diverted in medieval times, extends down the west side of Ardee Street. The area excavated was that where the new road would cross it. There proved to be two main channels in the stream, but it appears to have overflowed its banks on many occasions. Deposits of silt and gravel containing a small number of medieval and late medieval finds filled the channels and spilled out over the surrounding area. In the later 17th century the river was confined into a stone-walled culvert and the area beside it was developed for housing. The river was further confined in a brick arched culvert in the 18th century and finally into a pipe in the 20th century.

Site 4 — The Poddle River at Emerald Terrace
A large area was excavated on the south side of the road as testing had indicated that a depth of over 2m of archaeological deposits survived in this area. A branch of the River Poddle, formed when it was diverted in medieval times, crossed the street here and still survives inside a mass concrete culvert built at the beginning of the 20th century.

The earliest features uncovered consisted of a number of 12th- or 13th-century water-channels, one of which was lined with a timber revetment composed of horizontal timber planks held in place by driven posts. The channels crossed the site on south–north and south-west/north-east lines. One of the channels was narrower and had steeper sides than the others and turned to the west at its north end. Several large post-holes, arranged in two lines, surrounded the channel and may be the remnants of a horizontal mill. To its west there was a large shallow pool of water.

In the later medieval period the earlier river channels were cut through by a stone-lined channel, which crossed the north end of the site on an east–west line.

In the 1690s a new south–north-running culvert was constructed. Only the western side wall survived. This rechannelling of the river opened the area for development. Large amounts of stone, gravel and rubble were imported to build up the ground on either side of the new culvert and the first stone houses were erected. Shortly after, these houses fell into disrepair and a number of small kilns were erected inside their ruinous walls.

The houses were, however, soon rebuilt. Huge quantities of pottery sherds were imported and spread over the site as hard core for the floors of the new houses. They were either thrown down as a pure layer up to 0.35m in thickness or included in layers of burnt clay and ash. There were very many wasters and fragments of kiln structure amongst the sherds and they are obviously the refuse from a pottery kiln. The pottery represented consisted of sgraffito wares, slip-trailed wares and plain orange, brown and green glazed earthenwares. The forms recovered include candlesticks, shallow bowls, large plates, pipkins, cups and jars. Approximately 75,000 sherds were recovered.

These houses were themselves replaced at a later date but little trace of the later buildings survived. One curious late feature uncovered consisted of a 0.75m-wide channel, filled with neatly laid cattle horn cores, that described a rectangular path over an area measuring at least 14m by 6m. The horn cores probably derived from one of the 19th-century tanneries which operated on the other side of Cork Street.

Site 5—Tannery at Dolphin’s Barn
The earliest features surviving on this site consisted of very poorly preserved late medieval water-channels and a large pond. All were filled with silt but contained few finds and survived only in a limited area. Parts of a possible roadway of similar date also survived at the south-west corner of the site.

The main feature uncovered, however, consisted of a very extensive early 18th-century tannery, probably the largest and most complete yet excavated in this country. Stone walls appear first to have been built enclosing the site and the tannery was laid out inside them. The tannery consisted of stone- and brick-lined tanks. Four mortared stone- and brick-lined tanks were fed via a brick- and stone-lined drain which brought water from the city watercourse north-west of the site. An outflowing drain of similar construction led water away eastwards from the tanks. These four tanks were probably used for de-hairing the hides as they contained large quantities of lime and stinking hair-rich organic deposits. The tanning itself was undertaken in a series of at least 29 timber-lined tanks that were set in two large groups on either side of the outflow drain. Several other small tanks, drains and brick floors were associated with the tannery. As well as the usual large number of cattle horn cores, many wooden, tin and iron implements were found cast into the tanning pits when they were filled with a mess of oak bark chips and noisome organic material.

The remains of the first houses built on the site in the third quarter of the 18th century overlay the tannery. A number of drains under and around these houses were filled with neatly laid cattle horn cores from the old tannery.

25A Eaton Square, Terenure, Dublin 6W