County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: Augustine Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0061 ext.
Author: Alan Hayden, Archaeological Projects Ltd.
Site type: Riverine revetment, Watercourse, Milling complex and Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 714676m, N 734076m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.344470, -6.277794
Following surveys and monitoring of the demolition of a large early 20th-century grass-roofed bonded warehouse (in late 2005 and early 2006), this large site on the west side of the street was excavated between March and November 2006, in advance of its development. The northern half of the site was fully excavated to subsoil, while the southern half was generally only excavated to a level 1m below the formation level of the proposed development, due to its shallower depth in this area.
The site was originally low-lying mud flats on the edge of the River Liffey and lay just outside the town wall and ditch on the west side of the medieval town. Efforts were made to reclaim the site and a long sequence of post-and-wattle fences and revetments dating from the later 12th/early 13th–16th century were revealed in the northern half of the site. The fences were intended to trap silt and stabilise the river frontage, as it was progressively extended northwards.
The tail-race of the medieval Mullinahack mills was also revealed and excavated. It extended southwards down the western side of the site before joining a west–east-flowing watercourse about one-third of the way from the south end of the site. The streams were infilled in the 13th century and a new watercourse was opened further to the east. This also joined a new west–east-extending watercourse further southwards.
In the early 17th century the south–north-flowing watercourse was used to provide the power for two pin mills. The timber- and stone-lined millpond, sluices, wheel pits and tail-races of the mills survived, but little of the actual mill buildings remained. The millraces were delimited by a number of phases of timber fences and revetments before they were replaced with mortared stone walls. The well-preserved timber bases of four successive wheel pits survived in one of the mills. The mills went out of use just before the end of the 17th century.
Post-medieval agriculture (ridge-and-furrow cultivation) south of, and the rear ends of the properties first built on, Oliver Bond Street from the later 16th/early 17th century were also revealed.
The waterlogged conditions and large size of the site meant that a rich assemblage of finds was uncovered. This included much Dundry stone and a very large number of ceramic roof and floor tiles, probably from the nearby Hospital of St John the Baptist, a large dump of later 13th–16th-century imported and high-quality locally produced pottery, large numbers of medieval and post-medieval leather shoes and an interesting group of 17th-century pewter, iron and copper objects from the mills, including a large number of coins dating from 1601 to the 1690s.
After excavation, the remaining archaeological deposits were covered with terram and hardcore to protect them before development was undertaken.
27 Coulson Avenue, Rathgar, Dublin 6
