2010:337 - 24 Abbeygate Street Upper, Galway, Galway

Testing was carried out on 21 May 2010 at a site in advance of its development as a café at No. 24 Upper Abbeygate Street, Galway city. Testing was necessary as the proposed development was located within the constraint for Galway city (GA094–100). Although the extant building on the site dated to the 18th century, its location within the medieval city meant earlier subsurface medieval structures and/or deposits could survive on the site. The building dated to c. 1725, with remnants of a shop front of c. 1900. It was renovated c. 1985, with a traditional-style shop front added.
Testing consisted of the excavation (by machine) of three trenches located to best cover the area of the proposed development. The trenches measured 4.2m, 3.5m and 3.45m long respectively, 0.9–1.1m wide and 0.35–1.2m deep. Below the concrete on the surface was rubble fill and a stone flag surface, below which was black friable silt loam and orange/brown firm clay. Below this was grey boulder clay. The rubble fill contained red and yellow brick, mortar, slate fragments, one clay-pipe stem fragment, one sherd of modern pottery, occasional animal bone, oyster-shell fragments and a number of modern services. The silt loam contained shell fragments. A red/yellow brick foundation for a concrete block wall was also revealed.
Testing revealed evidence of modern activity associated with the existing 18th-century dwelling on the site. Nothing of archaeological significance was revealed, however, due to the site’s location within the heart of the medieval city and as the natural undisturbed layers were not exposed over the entire area during the test excavation, monitoring of all groundworks associated with the proposed development was recommended.
Monitoring was carried out between 9 and 11 June 2010. The ground reduction within the site, which measured 7m long and 6.9m wide, measured 1m deep. The stratigraphy revealed was the same as that recorded during the testing. The rubble fill contained a portion of a dressed window mullion. The exposure of the four wall foundations, constructed of roughly coursed mortared rubble, revealed a number of features.
The exposure of the north-east boundary wall foundation revealed two corbels and a blocked-up ope at its north-west end. The material contained within the ope consisted of loose soil and rocks and contained mortar, red-brick fragments, a decorated clay-pipe bowl of post-medieval date and five post-medieval pottery sherds. The ope extended beyond the north-west site boundary, at 0.4m below the surface. Within the site it measured 0.8m wide and was excavated to a depth of 0.6m. It was chamfered, while the lintel was broken in two. Both corbels were located 80mm below the surface. The first corbel was located 3m from the north-west end of the wall and measured 0.24m wide, 0.28m high and extended 0.2m from the wall. The second corbel was located 1.7m from the south-east end of the wall and measured 0.26m wide, 0.3m high and extended 0.24m from the wall.
The south-west boundary wall foundation contained a corbel at 0.2m from its south-east end, at 0.14m below the surface. It measured 0.14m wide, 0.24m high and extended 0.12m from the wall. The north-west boundary wall foundation, which was of the poorest construction of the four, contained a reused dressed block. Neither the north-west or south-east wall foundations were tied into the north-east or south-west walls.
The north-east wall appeared to be the oldest wall on the site and was depicted on the 1651 Pictorial Map of Galway. What was revealed during the monitoring was the exterior face of a gable, to the south-west of which was an open area. The south-west wall also appeared to be depicted on the 1651 Pictorial Map fronting on to Abbeygate Street, with an open area to the north-east. The north-west and south-east walls were later, possibly dating to the construction of the extant building in the early 18th century, when the corbels were possibly inserted in the north-east and south-west walls to carry a floor. The 18th-century development of the site must have blocked up the ope in the north-east wall. Certainly the artifacts recovered from the fill of the ope appeared to be 18th-century/post-medieval in date. The ope extended to the north-west into No. 26 Abbeygate Street, a building dated to the 16th/17th century. The interior of the building to the north-east, of which the north-east wall of No. 24 was the south-west gable, was the subject of testing by Dominic Delany in 1998 (Excavations 1998, No. 239, 98E154). This established that the south-west gable was of late medieval date, 16th/17th century. The ope feature revealed during the monitoring of groundworks then was the exterior of a window within the south-west gable of a late medieval building, which was blocked up when the wall was incorporated into the foundation of the north-east wall of the 18th-century building.
The proposed development did not impact on the medieval walls uncovered, with the proposed piles located a safe distance from the sides of the site. The ground level was raised through the filling of the site with quarried stone before a concrete floor was poured. A layer of flexcell (a membrane) and a radon barrier were placed between the quarried stone and the walls.
Subsequent to the monitoring of groundworks and on the suggestion of the National Monuments Service, the entire ground floor of the north-east wall was stripped of render. This revealed a late medieval doorway, located 1.75m from the north-west end of the wall and 1m above the floor level. The doorway measured 1.08m wide and 1.5m high. The jambs were dressed and chamfered. The head of the doorway was missing, having been replaced by red and yellow brick, while a number of blocks were missing from both jambs.