County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: School Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1856
Author: Claire Walsh
Site type: Watercourse
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 714393m, N 733761m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.341702, -6.282155
Testing was undertaken at the site of a proposed crèche and community resource centre at School Street, Dublin 8. The site lies within the perimeter of the medieval abbey of St Thomas the Martyr, which stood a short distance west of the walled town of Dublin. A watercourse to the south of this site is shown on Rocque’s 1756 map of Dublin. This is annotated ‘mill-race’ on the 1846–7 street-plan. The precise direction of the watercourse (which is beneath the School Street flats) is uncertain; however, the test excavation indicated that it turns at a right angle probably beneath Thomas Court and flows in a modern culvert beneath the eastern side of the site. A small building, annotated ‘WH’ on Rocque’s map, is placed over this watercourse.
Excavation was carried out on 18 December 2002, using a mechanical digger fitted with a toothed bucket. Archaeological deposits were uncovered in the test-trenches. These relate to a watercourse, also indicated by the cartographic evidence. Timbers are present in the water-deposited silts. The nature of the timber features has not been determined. They are, however, present in and on the edge of a culverted watercourse. There are no surviving archaeological deposits on the School Street frontage, but archaeological deposits appear to be better preserved on the eastern side of the site. Further archaeological work on this site will be undertaken before development.
27 Coulson Avenue, Rathgar, Dublin 6
