2010:295 - Smithfield, Dublin

In 1999, the public space at Smithfield was comprehensively redesigned by Dublin City Council in conjunction with McGarry Ní Eanaigh Architects, thus providing the 17th-century market place with relaid setts, hard landscaping and iconic gas braziers. The summer and autumn of 2010 saw a consolidation of this work with Phase 1 of the Smithfield Quarter enhancement scheme. This involved inter alia the laying of new ducting under the pavement along the eastern side of Smithfield, the provision of new street lighting and new road crossings. The depth of the ducting required an archaeological attendance and a licence was issued for the duration of the scheme.
Work commenced on 9 June with the excavation of a test-pit through the pavement outside Nos 3–4 Smithfield Terrace. It was found that at a depth of 0.42–0.5m, twelve plastic ducts had been previously laid, covered by lean-mix and backfilled rubble, sealed in turn by sand and paving in ‘Chinese’ granite. Investigation below the ducting uncovered the outer crown of a barrel vault in red brick at 0.52m below the surface. The rise and fall of the ducting suggested the presence of a similar vault just to the south; however, it was not found necessary to investigate any further. The vault was broken in a small area to reveal a void at least 1.2m in height. A sample of brick was retained and found to be handmade and poorly fired, with probable dimensions of 8 x 4¾ x 2½ inches, a relatively unusual size, suggesting a production date earlier in the 18th century rather than later. The vault was constructed in a very strong lime mortar with hardly any inclusions.
Examination of historical maps suggested that the vaults either belonged to a pair of houses which protruded slightly into the square and were depicted on the initial OS undertaken c. 1838 or perhaps to cellars associated with the Smithfield Penitentiary, opened in 1805 by the Lord Lieutenant the Third Earl of Hardwicke, initially to accommodate female prisoners. The prison operated as a facility for juvenile convicts in the 1830s and became a general convict depot until 1870. Serving briefly as a police barracks, it was vacant in 1872 and 1873, before being used by the North Dublin Union, presumably to house paupers and other unfortunates. By 1876 it was vacant again and appears to have been used for the storage of hay until its demolition in the 1970s for the construction of Smithfield Terrace. The physical evidence from the bricks, however, suggests an earlier provenance and the cellars most likely date to the second round of building leases which on Haymarket and on the western side of Smithfield were given out between 1710 and 1720. The area is, however, depicted by John Rocque as being semi-derelict in 1756 and the cellars may be associated with the one domestic building standing at this location.
Two trial-pits were excavated further south along the pavement to accommodate sleeves for new streetlights. An identical deposit emerged at both locations, with an upper, possibly truncated, level of approximately 0.4–0.43m below the paved surface. The deposit comprised sterile water-rolled gravels and silts, consisting of 70% clayey silts, 25% water-rolled cobbles and 5% larger sub-angular stones. Where there were no artifacts recovered, there were brick fragments recorded in the upper 0.1m which may be intrusive to the deposit. The material in the northern pit was dry to the base of the excavation but considerably wetter some 50m to the south and there was no indication at either location that the deposit was close to its base and no edges were present in the sections suggestive of a cut. The appearance of this material came of something of a surprise, given the depth of stratified material excavated by the writer directly across the marketplace, where the upper level of the subsoil was recorded at between 3.8–4.2m below the present surface. There are two possibilities regarding its provenance: the material may have been deposited en masse across the open area of the market place in order to consolidate the ground for heavy market-associated usage or a second, perhaps more persuasive theory, may hint at the early morphology of the 17th-century development of the urban estate and perhaps the extent of the medieval market that Smithfield replaced. The deposit may indicate the presence of a watercourse running south to the Liffey, which was used as an eastern boundary of the new market established c. 1667. In this regard it is worthwhile noting that the area immediately to the east of the present Smithfield was not plotted out as part of the primary development, although it would appear that the market place had some sort of formal frontage here by the 1690s. While admittedly there is a dearth of documentary evidence, John Speed’s representation of the city of some eighty years previously depicts a creek on the northern bank of the river at an approximate location south of the trial-pits, which Howard Clarke has extrapolated to the north (albeit running along the centre of the present market place). The provision of a fresh water supply is an essential component of a market place where animals and livestock are bought and sold and this appears to be the only evidence for a watercourse running through the area. There is, however, some evidence for a mill at this approximate location, which is suggestive of the availability of a reasonable flow of water. The Pool Mill is referred to as an ‘old corn mill’ in the Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin (Gilbert 1889, i, 158) where the Poule Mill is referenced in the Calendar of ChristChurch Deeds (McEnery and Refaussé 2001, No. 1190).
Further monitoring along the eastern frontage recovered evidence for a latrine pit, which produced artifacts with a mean date of 1700, supporting the theory that this side of the market was open until the early years of the 18th century. Where the other 17th- and 18th-century latrine pits excavated by the writer were located in the back plots well to the rear of the structures fronting Smithfield, this pit was located well to the front of the 18th-century building line and may have constituted a public jakes.
Investigation of historic street sett bedding
As part of a wider project investigating historic street surfaces in Dublin, an area of granite setts was investigated by the writer with the assistance of the contractor. The setts were lifted adjacent to the kerb outside the pedestrian entrance to the former Irish Distillers building, just to the south of the Dublin Bikes stand. The purpose of the investigation was to identify the nature of the bedding of the surface and to investigate the composition of the binding material between the individual setts. A secondary consideration was the determination of the age of the surface, although, in the absence of direct documentary evidence, this has been answered by an examination of the cartographical evidence.
There exists an historical reference to the initial paving of the early development. By 1667, the committee formed to administer the estate had yet to finish the paving of Smithfield. This was funded through the twenty shilling fines paid to alderman and leaseholder John Desmyniers by the leaseholders themselves and by a subsequent donation from Sir Daniel Bellingham, the first lord mayor of the city, who held a plot on the estate. It would appear that Bellingham agreed to continue funding the paving until completion, ‘in his love and affection for this citty . . . without any expectation of interest for such summes of money as by him shall be laid out’ (Gilbert, iv, 384–5). Unfortunately, the fabric and nature of the paving have not been recorded.
The first edition of the OS depicts this area (bounded to the south by Phoenix Street) as being occupied by seemingly random structures and yards, with a stepped northern frontage to Smithfield. The area from where the setts were lifted was occupied by a large structure which shared spatial characteristics with the structure depicted here by Rocque in 1756. Although some of the buildings had become ruinous by the time the revised edition was surveyed in 1886, the area was not opened to anything like its present extent until at some time after this date and before 1907, when the 25-inch map was published. To complicate matters further, the curtilage of Irish Distillers was subsequently extended to the west during the redevelopment of the site in 1979, which involved the demolition of a range of buildings which had formed the 1907 street frontage. A new street line was thus created by means of a boundary wall which continued that historic frontage established further to the north. The earlier arrangement of this end of the market was captured by the lens of Nevill Johnson in c. 1952, where it would appear that the diagonal sett surface continued into what is now the carpark of the Irish Distillers’ building.
In any event, the changes depicted on the 1907 map are considerable and the provision of a pair of weighbridges and a weighhouse located just to the south of the area in question would suggest that the whole area was redeveloped by this time. As the cattle market had ostensibly been removed to the North Circular Road in 1863, the rearrangement of the lower end of Smithfield can perhaps be seen as a belated attempt by the Corporation to redress the complaints which had prompted the move in the first place. However, although generally assumed otherwise, the market continued at Smithfield for the sale of horses, milch cows, store cattle and pigs until the foot and mouth outbreak of 1883, when the sale of cattle was forbidden outside of the new market, to meet the disease control requirements of the Privy Council.
Their refusal to renew the licence at Smithfield because of unsanitary conditions led to a protest meeting on 28 May 1883 resulting in a petition to the Corporation, which in turn referred the matter to the Privy Council, the body which effectively had forced the market’s closure. The Lord Lieutenant eventually informed a deputation that ‘the lack of paving at Smithfield inhibited disinfection . . . and the existence of a hay and straw market . . . would result in various animal diseases being carried home on farmers’ carts from an infected market’ (Clare 2002, 172). It would appear that this problem was rectified within the next 20 years and in 1899, 1912 and again in 1934 attempts were made by the Corporation to transfer the sale of pigs from the Phoenix Street corner to the North Circular Road and to confine business at Smithfield to the weekly sale of hay and straw. The evidence of the pig market’s continuance over this period would perhaps militate against the surface being laid or relaid after the curtilage of Irish Distillers was pushed out to its present extent in 1979. A more secure date, perhaps in the 1890s, could possibly be gleaned from Corporation records, should they be located.
The most substantial feature associated with the existing surface was a bedding of concrete 5 inches in thickness, finished to a level surface. This material was extremely durable and a strip 0.4m in width was opened up with some difficulty to the underlying material. A visual inspection suggests an early concrete using Portland cement with a rough pebble aggregate and a sample has been retained for further analysis. Within the material sampled, oyster shell and 19th-century black-glazed red earthenware were recovered along with a copper-alloy mount which will be conserved in accordance with the terms of the excavation licence. The deliberate inclusion of shell and pottery fragments is unusual in modern cements and suggests the bedding was laid by operatives aware of the use of pozzolans with hydraulic limes in damp conditions, and possibly of their use as a cement extender.
The setts themselves were laid on a loosely bound bedding of pebbles and tar, ½ inch in thickness, which was easily broken up with a shovel. Although there was no evidence for a viscous adhesive, the material was stained black/blue and smelled distinctively of tar. A sample has been retained for further analysis. The structural stability of the surface was maintained by the binding between the individual setts, assisted by their being laid at perhaps exactly 1 inch apart. The binder comprised tar and water-rolled pebbles with typical diameters of 5–10mm. It is not clear how the pebbles were introduced into the tar: they may have been inserted into the gaps prior to the tar being poured in or alternatively, the combination may have been pre-mixed and poured immediately after the setts were laid. In any event, there was little manifestation of the tar on the surface between the setts.
The setts themselves fell into two categories: where they were all 6½ inches in depth and 3½ inches in width, where their lengths varied from 6 inches to 8 inches, with 7 inches being the most popular. Perhaps 30% were wedge-shaped, i.e. their sides tapered slightly inwards, with the smaller setts mostly displaying this characteristic. There was no resulting pattern presenting along the surface, which maintained a good level across to the centre of the market place.
There are several reasons why so substantial a base might have been used at this location. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many similar surfaces were experiencing failure due to an increasing amount of traffic throughout the 19th century as well as an earlier tendency to construct surfaces without a proper formation level, which in much of the old city would consist of unstable soft organic material (O’Brien 1982, 67–8). Where there were undoubtedly heavy vehicles attending the market, the formation level does appear excessive and has not been noted at other locations where similar surfaces have been lifted by the writer in the course of archaeological excavation (for example Tram Street, Hammond Lane and Steevens’ Lane. The latter was laid as late as 1924 [O’Connell 1975, 30] but without a substantial concrete formation level).
It is likely, however, that the concrete subsurface was specifically laid over this area due to the nature of the underlying substrates, which along the southern end of Smithfield consist of dump and refuse deposits extending from the 15th century well into the 18th. Dumping over the area appears to have been formalised by law when in 1468 it was ordered that the citizens were to desist from casting their dung beyond the Newgate and other parts of the city, instead to bring it to the area without Hangman’s Lane (Hammond Lane) ‘in the holles and pittes there’ (Gilbert, i, 329). During the post-medieval period, the area along the Luas line from Bow Lane extending just to the north of Phoenix Street appears to have been in use as a laystall, an area where scavengers would store the contents of latrines and cesspits, while sorting through the material for valuables prior to its sale as fertiliser or landfill for reclamation works at the mouth of the Liffey (Myles 2005). Changes in the water table have altered the composition of the pits and the slumping effect was evident along the sett surface on Phoenix Street prior to its resurfacing over the past decade. The presence of large medieval refuse pits undoubtedly had an adverse effect on the structural stability of the houses constructed over them, several of which appear ‘in ruins’ on the 1886–87 OS mapping. It is likely that the undulations evident today at the junction of Arran Street West are the result of similar activity.
References
Gilbert, J.T. and Gilbert R.M. (eds). 1889–1944 Calendar of ancient records of Dublin, in the possession of the municipal corporation of that city (19 vols). Dublin.
Lotts Architecture and Urbanism. January 2009 Historic street surfaces in Dublin. Conservation Study and Guidance Manual.
McEnery, M.J. and Refaussé, R. (eds). 2001 Christ Church deeds. Dublin.
Myles, F. 2002 Stratigraphical report: Tram Street and Phoenix Street, Dublin 7. Unpublished report.
O’Brien, J.V. 1982 ‘Dear, dirty Dublin’: a city in distress, 1899–1916. London,
O’Connell, D. 1975 The antique pavement: an illustrated guide to Dublin’s street furniture. Dublin.