2002:0561 - DUBLIN: 3 Meeting House Lane, Dublin

Monitoring of groundworks during the excavation of sewerage trenches took place at 3 Meeting House Lane. The south wall of the property being developed adjoins the surviving chapterhouse of St Mary’s Abbey.

Five sewerage trenches were dug, leading to a manhole at the entrance to the building. They produced construction/rubble layers related to previous building activity on the site. Most commonly, beneath the existing concrete floor, a brown/red coarse sand layer, which contained post-medieval pottery and mortar, glass and small pieces of limestone and red brick, was identified.

The only evidence of an undisturbed archaeological layer survived at the entrance to the building opening onto Meeting House Lane. At a distance of 3.3m from the existing doorway, directly beneath the present concrete floor, a granite floor surface survived in situ. Eleven large granite slabs formed the floor. Beneath and between them a very compact lime mortar was present, and, to the east, the granite floor was also supported by limestone cobbles. Localised beneath these cobbles was a thin, coarse, lime mortar layer. An 18th-/19th-century date can be suggested for the granite floor surface, resulting from terminus post quem dates taken from the post-medieval pottery found underlying the floor slabs. It is thought that this elaborate surface (with some slabs almost 1m long and 0.16m thick) may be the remains of a building associated with one of the many credit institutions on the site of St Mary’s Abbey in the 19th century. Alternatively, the floor may be the remains of a building associated with the Presbyterian Meeting House, directly to the north. It is obvious from the size of the slabs used that the surface was intended to floor a significant structure.

32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2