2007:470 - DUBLIN: 118–123 The Coombe, Dublin

Test excavation was undertaken in October 2007, prior to the development of a site located on the south side of the Coombe, nearly opposite Francis Street. The work followed the demolition of existing buildings on the site.

The site lies along a main thoroughfare into the medieval walled town, near an extramural medieval gate (at the south end of Francis Street), in an area known from both archaeology and documents to have been built upon from at least the 16th century. The ‘Commons Water’ medieval watercourse also once ran along the Coombe near to the front of the site.

Testing identified limited medieval archaeology on the site, including: remnant medieval fields systems and features cut into the natural subsoil (at the south rear of the site); medieval made ground/’garden soils’ overlying natural subsoil and features cut into the natural subsoil (centre of the site); possible limited remains of a late medieval street frontage building and properties (front of the site, but the dates of such early remains are not precise and the building foundation in question is more likely to be 17th-century). There was no evidence for the presence of the medieval Commons Water watercourse on the site. This confirms the findings of Melanie McQuade at Nos 105–109 the Coombe (Excavations 2004, No. 528, 03E0207), which suggest that the aforesaid medieval watercourse was located on the north side of the Lower Coombe.

The site lies within what was historically the Earl of Meath’s Liberty of Donore, an area that experienced major building projects and a massive growth in population during the early post-medieval period (especially the 17th to early 18th centuries). Testing identified significant 17th-century to early 18th-century archaeology on the site. At the rear of the site, some of the aforementioned field systems appear to have continued in use into the 17th century. Scattered post-medieval outbuildings (storage cellars, privies) and post-medieval rubbish pits were also identified, including those likely to date at least from the end of the 17th century. In the centre of the site there were post-medieval made ground/garden soil deposits and other scattered features typical of backyards of the time, including outbuildings (possible workshops, ‘backlot’ tenements), wells, yard surfaces, rubbish pits and property boundaries. At the front of the site, there were shallower made ground/garden soil deposits, and the remains of early (unbasemented) street frontage buildings (foundation walls, old floor surfaces and drains), rubbish pits and early wooden water pipes. Much of this archaeology dates from the 17th century and broadly corresponds to surviving documentary evidence for the tenants of that era.

Levels at which the archaeology appeared varied, as the gradient on the site sloped moderately down from south to north. Also, the site is an agglomeration of narrow north–south-orientated former properties, on which the build-up of made ground/garden soils varied. Generally, sterile natural subsoil was encountered at about 8.99m OD at the front of the site, and at 11.22m OD at the rear; the deepest surviving archaeological deposits (in the centre of the site) are unlikely to extend below 7.99m OD.

27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2