2006:606 - 152–155 Church Street, Dublin, Dublin

An excavation was undertaken in advance of a mixed-use redevelopment at 152–155 Church Street, Dublin. The excavation identified thirteen phases of activity. The natural was river gravels located at 5.2m OD. The earliest archaeological phases were early medieval, possibly pre-dating the building of St Michan’s Church, and consisted of numerous small pits and gullies probably relating to tree boles, sealed by a red buried soil layer.
Cutting this latter was a truncated parallel double-ditch, forming the north enclosure of the church, and a single ditch, forming the probable east enclosure. One of the former had been previously identified by Rosanne Meenan on the opposite side of May Lane (Excavations 1997, No. 114, 96E384). After the ditches had silted up, the site reverted to apparent open ground, with extensive medieval dark earth deposits recorded.
Cut into the dark earth were the partial remains of two buildings in the north-east of the site, with respective beaten clay and mortar floors. The buildings were clearly sill-beam constructed and can be tentatively dated to between the 12th and 15th centuries. Both buildings evidently fell into disuse before burning down. Archaeolobotanical evidence indicates that one of these buildings was being used as a granary. An outline of a sill-beam could be seen in a scorched clay floor.
Significantly, historical documents relating to this exact location of the buildings have been identified. The plot was owned by the Serjant family in the 14th century, the Fychet family in the 15th century and the Barnwall family in the 16th century.
In the late 17th century a somewhat short-lived cemetery was located in the central portion of the site. A total of 224 articulated skeletons and disarticulated skulls were excavated, including infant and juvenile burials and numerous wooden coffins. The cemetery was no longer in use by 1728, when the site had been occupied by at least seven cellared buildings fronting on to May Lane and the associated back plots. By this date, the St Michan’s Church graveyard extension had been formalised with a stone boundary wall.
The 18th century saw the site exploited for gravel, with numerous large quarry pits excavated to the rear of the buildings fronting May Lane. The need for gravel was so great that quarrying was even undertaken within the cellars of the standing buildings, often to alarming depths. After the deliberate backfilling of the pits, the cellars and back plots were reinstated.
No archaeological evidence for the 19th-century buildings, known from the historic maps, was found. This has been apparently truncated by the modern concrete slab. However, numerous 19th-century rubbish pits and the foundations of a brick kiln, possibly for the firing of clay pipes, were found in the north-east of the site. The Church Street and Bow Lane frontages were extensively truncated by modern basements.