2008:476 - Former Charlemont Demesne, Marino, Dublin

A programme of monitoring and limited excavation was carried out on the site of the new Medico-Legal Centre within a small area of the former Charlemont Demesne at Marino. The new centre is located to the north-west of the Casino, a national monument. The development footprint lies close to the remains of two historically noted landscape features of the demesne: the Gothic Room and what was referred to as the Serpentine Lake. These features were not thought to be visible in today’s landscape. A series of test-trenches was initially opened by Sylvia Desmond and Peter Kerins in order to establish their possible survival (Excavations 2007, No. 529).
The proposed development area is located in the northern portion of the former demesne on land currently occupied by Dublin City Fire Brigade Training Centre and owned by Dublin City Council. The Medico-Legal Centre will consist of a two-storey structure within a walled enclosure with a landscaped courtyard to the rear. The present investigation involved the monitoring of ground reduction to below formation level over the footprint of the new building, along with limited investigation of walls associated with the Gothic Room over an area which will not be directly impacted on by the development and is earmarked for landscaping. The structures investigated over this area will therefore remain in situ.
It was hoped to establish the extent of the Serpentine Lake and perhaps locate other features associated with Charlemont’s 18th-century landscaping schemes. In any event, ground reduction never exceeded 1.4m in depth, and over most of the area only extended to some 0.4m, which was not sufficiently deep to uncover the continuation of the possible masonry revetment recorded in Desmond and Kerins’ Trench 5.
The estate at Marino was established during the latter half of the 18th century by James Caulfield, 1st Earl of Charlemont (1728–99). Charlemont’s stepfather, Thomas Adderley of Innishannon, had acquired the estate on his behalf while Charlemont was resident in Rome and presented the estate and Donnycarney House (later renamed Marino House) as a gift on his return to Ireland in 1755. The Gothic Room dates to 1762 and stood close to the head of a Serpentine Lake. It resembled a small church or chapel and was described in 1835 as ‘[a]n erection in the enriched Gothic style; the front representing a highly ornamental screen, adorned with tracery and niches: a noble pointed doorway with receding columns and fretted moulding, opens in the centre, and a crocketed pinnacle a little retired conveys the idea of a spire: the interior has been fitted up to imitate a nave, and side aisles of a cathedral, with clustered columns, deeply moulded arches, and groined ceiling’ (Otway 1835).
In 1825 Marino Demesne was already in a neglected state and the Dublin Penny Journal of 1835 made reference to its having ‘now lost its attraction – it has long been neglected’. It also referred to Rosamund’s Bower (the Gothic Room) as being ‘in ruins and a stranger seldom visits it’.
The reduction of the footprint and the construction of a temporary area of hard standing were undertaken through late June and July. The extent of the football pitch had already been reduced some years ago to a level c. 1.7m below that of the surrounding area.
Ground reduction was undertaken by a tracked excavator with a 2m bucket. The area was reduced to the required level in a series of east–west strips up to 6m in width, with the area impacted upon by a new reinforced concrete road to the south of the Medico-Legal Centre being initially examined. It was found that the sod level sealed two general deposits: to the east was a large area of introduced soil containing modern material, presumably dating to the construction of the football pitch. To the west was a darker soil, more organic in content, containing tree roots, vegetative matter and other modern material. The interface of both deposits extended along a north–south line and it seems the darker material came from the Serpentine Lake and had been spread out over an area to the east, rather than being removed wholesale from the site.
The slight foundation courses of two masonry walls were sealed by the more organic material and appeared to have more or less demarcated its eastern edge. Its degree of truncation rendered it impossible to phase the wall in any meaningful way. Its antiquity (or otherwise) may be indicated by the recovery of a decayed spent cartridge of a starter pistol below one of the masonry blocks, in such a position that it would appear unlikely to have arrived there accidentally. The wall was in any case left in situ and will not be impacted upon by the development.
The reduction of the area of landscaping to the rear of the centre was undertaken in two stages and resulted in a limited excavation of masonry and brick footings immediately to the east of what would appear to be the eastern elevation of the Gothic Room along with an investigation of a parallel wall some 9m to the north-east and a later wall, linking both earlier structures diagonally.
Flowerpot fragments or horticultural wares have traditionally been discarded by archaeologists (or at the very least treated with a modicum of derision). Pioneering work by English archaeologist, the late Chris Currie, has to a certain extent redeemed the humble flowerpot, establishing a rough chronology for the artefact type (Currie 1993). The pots recovered from Marino were of various sizes, all of a similar if not identical fabric, the usual unglazed red earthenware. All were hand-thrown and appear to have had the classic drainage hole in the centre of the base. The rims fell into two categories, those with a slightly everted rim and those with a thicker rim. A body sherd of the latter category was stamped
BOYLE
NORTHSTRAND
There is no record of such a firm on the North Strand in Dublin from the late 1830s and if the Northstrand alluded to is the nearby Dublin district, the flowerpots are presumably earlier. Recovered from the sondage was a minimum vessel count of twelve pots and the deposition probably represents a ‘flowerpot midden’ as identified by Currie (2005, 85).
The major finding of the investigations at Marino has been the recovery of F20, the eastern foundation of the Gothic Room. On the basis that something of a fair face remains over the upstanding twin arches, it would appear likely that the eastern wall at any rate was up to 1.5m in thickness, with the arches that are hidden behind the hoarding today being either recessed back from the foundation or representing the rear face of a double wall. This may have been undertaken as a device for hanging plants in an attempt to create a romantic ruin.
The shell of the Gothic Room appropriately became a small graveyard and it is likely that the northern and southern walls at least were demolished and subsequently rebuilt in concrete blocks in the relatively recent past.
References
Currie, C.K. and Locock, M. 1993 Excavations at Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens 1989–91. Post-Medieval Archaeology 27, 111–99.
Currie, C. 2005 Garden Archaeology: A Handbook. Council for British Archaeology. York.