County: Cork Site name: CORK: 4 Barrack Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 74:122 Licence number: 99E0650 ext.
Author: Sheila Lane
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 566984m, N 571308m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.892962, -8.479669
A proposal to renovate and redevelop three buildings at Nos 3–5 Barrack Street in Cork resulted in the archaeological excavation of all three sites; No. 4 Barrack Street was the last to be excavated. Piled foundations on the adjoining sites dispensed with the need for piling at No. 4, and the site was fully excavated to the formation level of the proposed raft foundation.
Several archaeological levels were exposed. Although some evidence of habitation levels revealed at the lowest point of the excavation, it did not reach sufficient depths to establish the continuation of the timber trackway exposed at No. 3 (Excavations 1999, No. 87). Successive layers of rough stone paving exposed along the street front may represent a later trackway along this route.
Overlying this paving an extensive area of in situ burning was exposed. The size of this deposit suggests industrial rather than domestic origins. Iron knives, large hone stones and slag were recovered from these 13th-century hearth deposits. The upper levels of the site comprised two distinct levels of dumped material. A layer of dumped soils with a medieval content was overlain by post-medieval waste.
Small finds recovered from 13th-century levels included a gem-set copper-alloy ring brooch and eight small copper-alloy buttons.
A mortar or lime pit, with a cobbled floor and lime content, was exposed within the post-medieval deposits.
AE House, Monahan Road, Cork
