County: Dublin Site name: DALKEY: 19 White's Villas
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 04E1529
Author: Sinclair Turrell, Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 726326m, N 727060m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.278796, -6.105730
A test excavation took place on 11 November 2004 at 19 White's Villas, Dalkey, Co. Dublin, before the construction of a new dwelling in the garden to the side of an existing house. The site was close to both a pre-Norman church and two 15th–16th-century fortified houses. Three trenches were excavated, two running east-west and a shorter north-south trench connecting these. The ground had been built up in modern times, probably prior to the construction of the existing house.
Below this made-up ground was a substantial deposit of cultivation soil some 0.5–0.7m thick, containing a variety of 19th-century finds. In Trench C, around 1.2m below the current ground surface, a north-south ditch was uncovered, containing a small sherd of Leinster cooking ware and thus dating to the 13th–14th centuries. This ditch was cut into the subsoil, perhaps forming a boundary between burgage plots. An indistinct linear feature running east-west was also noted in the base of the trench. This feature could not be dated but was probably also medieval. It may have formed the northern limit of a burgage plot or, perhaps more probably, have been some sort of agricultural feature.
As the foundation levels for the proposed new dwelling were at a higher level than these medieval features, it was recommended that foundation works be monitored. This was carried out under an extension of the same licence. Nothing of archaeological significance was revealed during the excavation of the foundations.
Windsor House, 11 Fairview Strand, Fairview, Dublin 3
