2011:093 - GRATTAN STREET, Cork

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Cork Site name: GRATTAN STREET

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 11E0221

Author: Maurice F. Hurley

Site type: Urban

Period/Dating:

ITM: E 566945m, N 572042m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.899551, -8.480313

The Board of Management of Cork Educate Together National School was granted permission for the demolition of two prefabricated classroom buildings and the erection of a new single-storey extension. One condition of planning permission requested that the site be tested. The site lies within the Zone of Archaeological Potential for Cork City (CO074-122) and within the Historic Town of Cork City (CO074-34/01). The boundaries of the irregularly shaped site were framed by housing developments, especially on the eastern side, where the site lies to the rear (west) of properties fronting North Main Street.

The likely location of the medieval town wall (CO72-34/01) lies c. 60–70m west of the site boundary. St Peter’s Church, a historic building of 18th-century date and the site of earlier churches, lies c. 30m to the north.

The locations of the trenches were based on the requirements of the Cork City Council in the light of the current proposal. Four trenches were excavated to depths of 0.7–0.9m.

Beneath the tarmac and underlying concrete the upper 0.5m of the site was made up almost exclusively of demolished rubble (brick, stone and mortar). This material continues to depths of at least c. 0.9m in places (i.e. where the trenches were excavated to that level). All of the artefacts recorded from this rubble were of 19th- and early 20th-century date.

A stone wall built of ashlar blocks was recorded in one trench. The wall ran north–south and corresponds in location to the stub of a wall (now serving as a buttress). The wall was probably a late medieval/early modern large townhouse. It was recommended that the wall be preserved in situ and the location of piles adjusted to avoid it.

6 Clarence Court, St Luke’s, Cork