County: Dublin Site name: 1 Bow Lane/Cromwell’s Quarters, Dublin
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DU018–020291 Licence number: 08E0547
Author: Antoine Giacometti, Arch-Tech Ltd, 32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2.
Site type: Urban, medieval and post-medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 713486m, N 733806m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.342301, -6.295749
Test-trenching was conducted at a small corner site on Bow Lane West and Cromwell’s Quarters. The site was cleared at the time of the testing programme.
The foundations of an 18th-century rectangular building with basement and rear outhouse pits were identified in the northern third of the site, fronting onto Bow Lane West, however any original 18th-century features in the building’s basement appear to have been destroyed in the 19th or early 20th century. Traces of an early 19th-century residential or commercial building fronting onto Cromwell’s Quarters are visible in the boundary walls to the south-west of the site.
The 18th-century construction activity was associated with extensive levelling of the site. Below the existing ground surface within the site, 18th- and 19th-century demolition rubble was found to reach a depth of at least 1.5m, except to the far south where it was slightly shallower. Below this is a deep layer of agricultural garden or field soil which contained some medieval pottery, and which in turn overlay the natural geological subsoil, which was exposed at a depth of 2.5m from the surface at the southern end of the site.
Although no pre-18th-century features were noted on the site, it remains possible that these exist. If so, they will be present below the ground at a level of deeper than 2m from the existing surface. The presence of the Camac River directly to the north-west of the proposed development site suggest that early material (in particular medieval material) might be present here. For this reason, monitoring of the relevant portions of the site was recommended.
Although the 18th- and 19th-century walls surrounding the site are of limited archaeological interest, the western site boundary wall has added significance due to its location along Cromwell’s Quarters, formerly Murdering Lane and also known as the ‘Forty Steps’, an archaeological monument (DU018–020–291). The original (17th-century?) boundary here forming the lane appears to be long gone; however, the standing portions of the existing walls have the potential to provide a positive visual impact along the monument.
