2015:388 - DUBLIN: St James’s Hospital, James’s Street, Dublin

This assessment carried out at James’s Hospital comprised three main projects: monitoring of geo-technical test-pits carried out in the south-west corner of the complex, towards the Rialto gate, and archaeological testing in two areas, at the northern end of the complex, fronting onto Mount Brown and abutting the new Trinity Centre of Health services (Site 1) and in the south-west corner of the hospital complex, close to the Rialto gate (Site 2).

The monitoring of the geo-technical pits produced evidence of infilling of clay in the south-west corner of the complex but the pits were not very deep. Site 1, on the other side of the complex and fronting onto Mount Brown however, had higher archaeological potential as it was closer to the medieval street frontage and abutted the excavation carried out in advance of the construction of the Trinity Health Centre by Walsh in 2001. This excavation located medieval deposits in the form of some sort of wooden structure, dating to the late 12th century, followed by cultivation in the 13th and 14th century. A road constructed in the late medieval period and orientated east-west, appeared to run into Site 1 (Walsh Excavations 2001, No. 402).

The investigation of Site 1 located the stone foundations of the large 19th-century building, the façade of which is still retained along the street frontage, in the middle of the site (north of the Haughton Institute). The east and west walls were found approximately 1m below present ground level and extending to approximately 0.6m in depth. Another stone wall, likely to relate to an extension to the building on the western side, was also found, along with a small cellar or latrine filled with domestic refuse in the north-west corner of the site. The latter is likely to have been associated with the range of buildings that are depicted on the first Ordnance Survey in 1838-47. The post-medieval buildings are cut into a deep deposit of sticky yellow marly clay, which looks like a natural deposit but contains flecks of brick, charcoal and mortar. This clay is low-grade 19th-century infill soil, measuring between 0.6m and 1.2m in depth, and used to infill and build up the ground level as was found elsewhere in the hospital complex. At the very lowest level a band of greenish clay was found, which measured between 0.2m and 0.3m in depth and contained only yellow clay containing charcoal and shell fleck but no brick suggesting it may date to the medieval period. This, however, was difficult to establish definitively.

Site 2 in the south-west corner of the complex, just south of the extant 19th-century chapel in an area not developed until after the 1830s, when the Auxiliary Workhouse was established in this location. The assessment lay outside the footprint of the buildings but established that this area had also been infilled and levelled out with sticky yellow clays and domestic refuse, which was designed to build up the ground level by approximately 1.5m. The sticky clays contain brick and fragments of bone (included human bone) and had probably been re-deposited in this area. A large stone-revetted open drain, which may pre-date the 1830s, attests to the wet and marshy conditions in this area also suggested by the over-flow ponds probably created during construction works for the Grand Canal (1796) to the south-east of the site. The drain is not represented on the maps but there is a large open ditch depicted on the Ordnance Survey of 1906-9 running north-south to the north-east of the Auxiliary Workhouse, which may be related to it.

The cartographic sources record the footprint of the Auxiliary Workhouse, which by the early 20th twentieth century had expanded considerably. While the east range still serves as part of the hospital complex, the western ranges were demolished between 1909 and 1936 after which time this area was used as a car-park. Therefore, it is highly likely the foundations survive intact within the footprint of the complex.

The investigation by Walsh on the eastern side of the hospital complex (where the graveyard is marked on the Ordnance Survey of 1838, south of the South Dublin Union Workhouse) (the proposed radiotherapy treatment facility), also located similar infill clay soils which contained fragments of human bone (Walsh Excavations 2009, No. 308: Licence no. 08E1021). This revealed the foundations of the school depicted on the 1846 Ordnance Survey, which was founded on 1m thick clays that produced the small assemblage of residual disarticulated human bone. Subsequent excavation did not reveal any further bones or any articulated skeletons in this location although the footprint of the school was exposed.