County: Dublin Site name: ROEBUCK
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 09E0542
Author: Yvonne Whitty, De Faoite Archaeology, Unit 10, Riverside Business Centre, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow.
Site type: Non-archaeological
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 718201m, N 729598m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.303469, -6.226549
Monitoring was carried out at the sports ground soccer pitch within the Belfield campus of University College Dublin between November 2009 and January 2010 at the location of the National Institute for Bioprocess Research and Training Facility (NIBRT).
The site of the NIBRT development is within a walled garden which is associated with Merville House. This house is a Georgian country house built
c. 1750 by John Foster. Detailed examination of all maps of the area was undertaken at Trinity Map Library. John Barker’s estate map from 1762 illustrates clearly the house and gardens at Merville. The site is also located 340m north-east of Roebuck Castle, DU022–017.
Prior to groundworks the site was a flat greenfield. It was bounded on three sides by garden walls which were contemporary with the house at Merville and on the fourth side by a ha-ha ditch. Neither of these features was impacted upon by the proposed development. The south-west corner of the site contained the remains of demolished stables which are presumably related to the riding school which was set up at Merville in 1938 by Colonel Hume-Dudgeon.
No finds or features of archaeological significance were exposed in these areas.
