County: Kildare Site name: KILCOCK: The Square
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 07E0589
Author: Clíodhna Ní Lionáin, Arch-Tech Ltd.
Site type: Town
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 689681m, N 739775m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.400497, -6.651416
Monitoring of all groundworks associated with the development was undertaken at The Square, Kilcock, Co. Kildare, in advance of a two-storey office extension. An exploratory 1m-wide trench was excavated along the southern site boundary in order to assess the nature of the site stratigraphy, following which it was decided to use piled foundations and ground beams rather than conventional foundations. The trench was excavated for a length of 8m and to a depth of 2m. A floor surface and a brick wall were identified in the northern part of the trench, c. 0.1m below the present cement carpark surface. The bricks appear to be of 19th-century date and may be associated with a distillery that was depicted as located on the site on the first-edition OS map. The wall and surface were left in situ. South of this the trench was dug to a depth of 2m, the upper 1–1.2m of which consisted of building rubble. Beneath this a layer of red silt overlay a mid-grey clay layer. An animal bone was noted in the clay layer. It is possible that this layer is associated with the river, the course of which has been straightened over time.
32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2
