2012:216 - Zoological Gardens, Phoenix Park, Dublin, Dublin

CRDS Ltd was retained by the Office of Public Works to carry out monitoring of groundworks for two separate developments in the Zoological Gardens between November 2010 and March 2012. The Zoological Gardens are located in Phoenix Park in the townland and civil parish of St James. The developments consisted of the construction of new veterinary facilities at the south-east extent of the zoo and a new bull elephant house in the elephant enclosure to the north. Monitoring was required as a condition of the grant of planning permission.

Groundworks penetrated to a depth of at least half a metre, with an attenuation tank in the veterinary facility and a sandbox within the elephant house requiring trenches 2m deep. No features of archaeological significance were identified within the veterinary facility site and the only finds recovered were modern ceramics. Modern rubbish and build debris were present at depths of up to 1m and recent service trenches extended across the site.  Underneath these deposits, natural soils were exposed, consisting of dull grey brown sand and coarse silt, with an intervening layer of humic soil present only in less disturbed areas. Similar deposits were exposed within the elephant enclosure, though sealed by a recent deposit of sand. The remains of the original eastern boundary wall of the zoo extended north-west/south-east underneath the elephant enclosure. The foundations consisted of black limestone blocks, roughly dressed and bonded with lime mortar, 0.8m wide, 1m deep and contained within a well-defined trench. A ditch, c. 0.5m deep and 1m wide, extended along the wall's eastern face. Little of the wall survived above the original ground level. No structures are visible within the relevant areas on any maps prior to the 1843 Ordnance Survey. The Zoo was founded in 1831 and the wall appears on the 1843 map; the ditch appears to have been a later addition. A 1983 map of the park depicts both wall and ditch, suggesting the wall was demolished and the ditch backfilled within the last thirty years.

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