2003:496 - DUBLIN: Mother Redcap’s, Back Lane/Lamb Alley, Dublin

Testing was carried out in advance of proposed redevelopment at Mother Redcap’s Market, Back Lane, Dublin, between 6 and 11 November 2003. The market, which closed about two years ago, is located in the old Winstanley’s shoe factory. The building fronts onto Back Lane and its rear elevation runs along Lamb Alley. Both of these thoroughfares date back to the medieval period. Previous assessment by Franc Myles (November 2002, April 2003) and excavation by Helen Kehoe (Excavations 2002, No. 552, 02E1667) confirmed that the Lamb Alley boundary wall was built over the medieval city wall. Present ground level within the building lies c. 1m above that of Lamb Alley and 0.6m above Back Lane.

Seven trial-pits were excavated; an eighth proposed pit could not be opened, as it was sited in the interior of an extant cottage. The proposed size of each was 3m by 3m, but, owing to obstructions on the ground and overhead services pipes, etc., the majority were in the region of 2m by 2m. The pits were excavated using a mini-digger with an 18-inch bucket and a maximum reach of 2m. Potential archaeological deposits were examined by trowelling.

The interior of the market is floored with a reinforced concrete flag 0.1–0.2m thick. Present ground level was, therefore, more or less the same in all of the trial-pits opened.

Medieval deposits or possible medieval deposits were exposed in three of the seven pits opened. In Trial-pit 1, medieval garden soils occurred at a level of 0.75m/1m below PGL and continued to the limit of excavation at 1.25m. The medieval horizon graded up into 17th/18th-century garden soils and it would seem that the immediate area had been a patch of open ground until it was eventually cobbled over in the late 18th or 19th century. In Trial-pit 7, in the south-east corner of the market, a medieval horizon, made up of compacted silty clays with some organic refuse, surfaced at a depth of 1.2m below PGL. Only a small zone of this horizon survived within the excavated area, the remainder having been cut away by the foundation trench for a boundary wall. Without further excavation, it remains unclear what the origin of the medieval clays might be. Given their location at the rear of a plot, and immediately inside the city wall, it seems more likely that they represent garden, or open-ground, deposits rather than an occupation floor. Finally, in Trial-pit 4, located in the south-west corner of the market, a horizon of refined brick-free soils surfaced at a depth of 1.9m below PGL. Further excavation would be required to date the material, but it may be medieval in origin. Refined organic soils that occurred at a similar level in the adjacent Trial-pit 3 did, however, prove to be 18th century in date.

The medieval deposits were not excavated, but the few pottery sherds recovered are all likely to be of 15th/16th-century date. Given the depth and variety of medieval deposits found during previous excavations in the Back Lane/Lamb Alley area by Clare Walsh and Tim Coughlan, it seems very likely that the present testing has, for the most part, not penetrated as far as the medieval horizon of archaeology. The absence of any 17th-century houses or features may also be partly due to the fact that none of the trial-pits was deeper than 2.1m. However, the location of the pits is probably more relevant in this instance. There is a minimum interval of 18m between the medieval street frontage along Back Lane and the most northerly of the trial-pits (Nos 3 and 6).

The four pits opened adjacent to the line of the city wall (Trial-pits 4, 5 and 7; Helen Kehoe test-trench of 2002) indicated that the top 1–2m of deposits is made up of 18th- and early 19th-century fill. Some of this material may have been dumped in the decades prior to the construction of the Sweetman Brewery in 1795—Franc Myles suggests that the city wall may already have been very dilapidated by the mid-18th century. However, the greater proportion of the material seems likely to have been deliberately dumped as a level-raiser, thus probably accounting for the present difference in ground level between the interior of the market building and Lamb Alley.

The bulk of the stratigraphy and features uncovered in the remaining trial-pits also proved to be 18th or early 19th century in date. Rocque’s map of 1756 shows a dense arrangement of houses fronting onto Back Lane, with over half of the associated long linear plots stretching back southwards to the city wall. Franc Myles has suggested that these are likely to have been Dutch Billy houses. The absence of any very definite structural evidence (house walls, fireplaces, etc.) in the trial-pits can probably be explained again by the fact that the excavated areas would lie at the rear of any dwellings. The backfilled cellar or lined pit found in Trial-pit 6 is likely to have been associated with one of the Back Lane dwellings. The exposed south edge of the feature consisted of a cob wall with stud timbers, seemingly an unusual feature in 18th-century Dublin. The cellar/pit did not contain any trace of cess material. While it may have been an ‘ash pit’, the presence of what seems to have been an internal dividing wall suggests that it was a roofed rather than an open structure.

A north–south wall, exposed at the eastern side of Trial-pit 1, may be an 18th-century plot boundary and concords with a boundary shown in roughly the same location on Roque’s map. A similar 18th-century boundary wall uncovered in Trial-pit 7 also seems to correspond with a plot boundary shown on Rocque’s map; the north end of the east wall of the market building appears to lie along the same trajectory and may be a continuation of it.

An additional phase of archaeological investigation may take place at the site once the design of the proposed development has been completed.

7 De Burgh Road, Dublin 7