2007:732 - TRALEE: The Mall, Kerry

Monitoring was undertaken during the initial groundworks stage of construction at Penney’s stores on The Mall in Tralee. The proposed development site is located in the centre of Tralee and faces on to The Mall, which is traditionally regarded as the main shopping street in the town. The Penney’s building is located on a corner, at the junction of Barrack Lane and The Mall. It has frontage to Barrack Lane to the east and a limited frontage to Milk Market Lane to the north.

The initial site inspection was undertaken in March 2007 when the premises was in the process of demolition. The first phase of ground disturbance involved the removal of a c. 0.25m layer of concrete core covering the entire area of the site. The area was subsequently covered with a c. 0.45m layer of hardcore prior to the commencement of piling. Monitoring concentrated on those areas of the development where maximum ground disturbance was to occur; i.e. the excavation of the pile caps, lift shaft, elevator shaft and crane base. The excavation of the pile caps rarely exceeded 1m in depth and the soil profile noted in the individual areas did not vary significantly across the site. It consisted of a 0.45m layer of recently introduced hardcore, which overlay a very mixed layer of made ground consisting of rubble, red brick, modern crockery, modern butchered animal bones interspersed in places with very thin layers of mid- to dark-brown organic sandy silts. The excavation of the pile caps did not go beyond the level of this modern overburden and no features or finds of archaeological merit were noted in any of the trenches. The excavation of the lift shaft and the elevator shaft at the south-east corner of the development site reached depths of 2m and 1.7m respectively. The upper levels of the soil profile were identical to that observed in the pile caps, with modern overburden reaching a depth of almost 1.1m in both areas. Beneath the overburden a relatively thin undisturbed layer of dark peaty sediment was encountered. This measured 0.1–0.3m in depth and in the area of the elevator shaft it overlay the natural soft/loose sandy silts and clays that the site investigation report indicates extend to depths of between 2.5m to 3m. The excavation of the lift shaft did not penetrate beyond the level of the peat layer. No features or finds of archaeological importance were noted in either of these areas.

The deepest area of excavation was at the north-west corner of the development site, where a wide pit was excavated to accommodate the crane base. The soil profile here was not dissimilar to that noted in the deep pits for the lift shaft and elevator shaft, except that there was a reduced amount of rubble and building debris in the upper levels. The pit was excavated to a depth of almost 3m. The recently introduced stone overlay a deposit of light-brown sandy silt containing red brick and some modern delft. The layer of peat encountered at the southern end of the site was also present beneath the silt at a depth of 1.2m and this varied in thickness from 0.25m to 0.4m across the excavated area. Beneath this deposit was a thin layer of virtually stone-free sand and at a depth of 3m the natural gravel deposits were encountered.

Rostellan, Midleton, Co. Cork