County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: 9 Coke Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 07E0949
Author: Judith Carroll, Judith Carroll & Company Ltd.
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 714562m, N 734335m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.346825, -6.279403
Trial testing was carried out prior to the construction of an office/retail development at 9 Coke Lane, Dublin 7, in October and November 2007. The area of the development was situated within the constraint area of medieval Dublin, DU018–020.
The only feature of interest from the site was a red-brick tunnel, 2.5m in height and 1.25m in width, with plastered wall and a flat stone floor. The tunnel was comparable to other examples, mainly of 18th-century date. Though it was found close to the river inlet prior to the 18th century, it did not look like a drain or sewer nor did it contain the sort of silt stratigraphy which would be expected if this were the case. Its flat floor would suggest it was intended as some sort of access route. It was, however, puzzling, as there is no large house or estate in line with it. It is possible that it was used as an access to the river at some stage.
Excavation of the tunnel was undertaken in November 2007. The presence of a stairway ascending from the tunnel to the south, towards the rear of the existing buildings on Arran Quay, suggests that the tunnel may have been directly connected to a building that existed on the site previously. The stairway was built by laying bricks on a bed of tightly compacted soil. A clay-pipe bowl dating to the first half of the 18th century and a single sherd of gravel-tempered ware, which generally dates to the 17th century, were found in this soil. The fill of the tunnel contained numerous ceramic vessels. These were contained within the fill of the base layer, which also contained a high proportion of congealed ink and numerous larger ceramic bottles and jugs. A number of jugs bore the maker’s mark ‘J. Bourne, Denby, Derbyshire’ and were dated to the latter half of the 19th century.
The main function of the tunnel at 9 Coke Lane appears to have been access, both to the building at the rear of the development site and to some point eastward of it. Unfortunately, the limits of the development site did not allow any further excavation to the east, but it can be assumed that the tunnel connected the quay-facing building to some other building, or that it was a trade or staff entrance of some kind.
Consultant Archaeologists, 11 Anglesea Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
