2009:329 - TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, Dublin

Monitoring took place at the Trinity Long Room Hub, a new build in Trinity College, which is located between the Arts Building and the 1937 Reading Room (a protected structure). The site lies directly south of the known location of the priory of All Hallows, founded in 1166. The monitoring works revealed that the impact of the construction of the Arts Block in the 1970s and the Edmund Burke Theatre on the site was severe. The ground level had been reduced by up to 1.5m, removing all the accumulated topsoil and the upper subsoil, except in a small area on the western side of the site. This area, which abutted the Provost’s House garden, produced the remains of an old ground level and two pits, one medieval and the other post-medieval in date.
The medieval pit lay 1.45m below the existing ground level, although the upper level had been truncated. It was circular in shape and measured 1.5m in width by 0.6m in depth, filled with dark-brown moderately compact silty clay with gravel and stones. The pit contained medieval pottery including fragments of mottled green-glazed, finely tempered earthenware, probably South East Wiltshire ware. The post-medieval pit was a short distance away and was also at 1.45m below present ground level but was slightly smaller, measuring 1.3m in width by 0.25m in depth. It was cut into the subsoil and was filled with dark-brown, moderately compact sandy clay, which had numerous charcoal fragments, suggesting it might represent cinder waste. Fragments of tin glazed earthenware, datable to between the 17th and the 19th century, were recovered from the pit, suggesting it probably dates to the 18th century.