2012:198 - All Hallows District Metered Area, Dublin, Dublin

The Dublin Region Watermain Rehabilitation Project is an initiative which intends to tackle the high level of water leakage from within the water distribution network. The project will seek to identify those areas of watermain infrastructure yielding the greatest sustainable water savings throughout the Greater Dublin Region (GDR). The GDR for the purposes of the project consists of the county council areas of Dublin City, Fingal, South Dublin, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown and parts of Kildare and Wicklow. To date the project has recommended mains in 55 DMAs for rehabilitation.

There are three recorded monuments within the All Hallows District Metered Area (DMA), DU018-012, 017 and 023. Watermains rehabilitation was to take place within the archaeological constraints of one these recorded monuments (DU018-012), a 16^th/17^th-century dwelling and dwelling cluster site.

While a licence had been issued for monitoring in 2011, ground works did not commence until 2012; an archaeological attendance was required for the monitoring of works in this DMA on occasions during April 2012. The archaeological works that formed part of the All Hallows DMA consisted of monitoring of open cut trenching within the vicinity of the dwelling and dwelling cluster site at St Patrick’s College (DU018-012) on Drumcondra Road Upper. Open cut trenching was not carried out in the vicinity of the possible castle site on Richmond Road (DU018-017) or the dwelling site on Dorset Street Lower (DU018-023) therefore no archaeological attendance was required in the vicinity of these two sites.

The process of rehabilitation involved either the exposure of the existing watermain or the excavation of a new trench for a new pipe (new-lay). This was generally carried out with the use of a mechanical excavator of either a JCB type or a smaller ‘mini-digger’ type excavator. Where necessary some of the trenches were partially hand excavated.

Two stretches of trench were excavated opposite the Skylon Hotel, within the vicinity of DU018-012 on Drumcondra Road Upper. The more northerly of the two measured approximately 5m in length by 1m in width and was excavated to a maximum depth of 1.5m. The lowest identified deposit consisted of light brown/yellow, apparently sterile, sandy clay, which was exposed at a depth of 0.9m from the road surface. This sandy clay layer was overlain by up to 0.6m of modern gravel/sand in-fill, which was in turn sealed by 0.3m of hardcore and overlying tarmac.

The second, more southerly, stretch of trench measured approximately 6m in length by 1m in width. The sandy clay layer exposed in the first trench was again identified at a depth of approximately 0.9m, and was cut along its eastern side by modern service ducts. These ducts were directly overlain in this trench by up to 0.6m of concrete, which was itself sealed by the modern road surface. The sterile sandy clay layer exposed in both stretches of trench would appear to be natural subsoil.          No archaeological features, in situ deposits or artefacts were uncovered during the archaeological monitoring of these ground works.

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