2003:530 - DUBLIN: Francis Street, Dublin

Testing was carried out over a two-week period at Francis Street carpark, north of Swift Alley and south of Thomas Street, Dublin 8. Future development is planned for the carpark area in the form of apartments with basement and carpark facilities. As the area is within the area of archaeological interest in Dublin, testing was proposed in advance of development.

The carpark is currently divided into upper and lower areas. The upper carpark is a raised area 0.6m above the lower carpark, c. 60m long and 10–20m wide, located behind the Tivoli theatre. The lower carpark is located along the northern side of the Tivoli theatre, c. 30m by 45m in size, at approximately the same level as the street frontage. Six trenches were excavated, by mechanical digger fitted with a toothless bucket, within the lower and upper carparks, each being 1.5m wide. Each of the trenches was excavated to the top of any archaeological layers. Due to the depth of overburden on the site (up to 1.5m in some areas), it was decided that the information from these trenches would be further augmented by a series of 1.5m by 1.5m sub-trenches within, excavated by machine to the level of subsoil, in order to identify the total depth of stratigraphy across the site.

Between 0.5 and 1m of modern overburden survives on-site, particularly within the lower carpark area, where there appears to be greater modern disturbance; up to 1–2m of archaeological material was uncovered below this material to subsoil level. The archaeological layers in the most part appear to be garden soils, deposited during the medieval and post-medieval periods as a means of keeping ground levels relatively flat. Beneath this garden soil, a number of silty deposits reminiscent of river or estuarine material were excavated. These too produced archaeological material, in the form of medieval pottery fragments and quantities of animal bone. The remains of a possible ditch or gully were also uncovered, extending across the site in a west–east or north-west/south-east direction, identified within the lower carpark area. It is possible that this is related to the watercourse which is depicted in de Gomme’s map of the area, which extends in the same direction. As the area is known to have contained a number of mills during the medieval period, it is also possible that this watercourse may have been for such a use.

Evidence for possible early medieval activity was also uncovered during the testing, both in the form of fragments of medieval pottery (Ham Green ware) and also three areas of subsoil-cut activity. The first area was located at the base of sub-trench 1C in the upper carpark and survived as a section of a plank of wood extending from subsoil level; the second was located at the base of sub-trench 6A in the form of a large, apparently circular, pit; the third was located towards the eastern edge of Trench 7 in the form of a series of wooden upright posts around which a deposit of brushwood was uncovered. Due to the keyhole nature of the sub-trenches and the health-and-safety issues related to the depth of stratigraphy, it was not possible to ascertain the full nature and extent of these deposits.

As well as these early deposits, post-medieval activity was uncovered in the form of two stone walls extending north–south along Trench 1. These probably relate to the building plots depicted on the earlier OS maps, as they appear to be in the same orientation, lining up well with the existing buildings that front onto Thomas Street. Evidence for other post-medieval activity was also located, in the form of a red-brick structure at the southern end of the upper carpark which contained a hexagonal basement/cellar structure. Evidence for industrial activity in the area was uncovered in small pockets across the site as dumps of industrial waste containing ash deposits and clay-pipe fragments