2016:190 - Bandon Community Hospital, Bandon, Cork

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Cork Site name: Bandon Community Hospital, Bandon

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 16E0310

Author: Jacinta Kiely

Site type: Workhouse

Period/Dating:

ITM: E 549966m, N 554880m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.744026, -8.724536

The Health Service Executive received planning permission to modify and extend the Community Hospital at Bandon. Monitoring took place of all ground disturbance works associated with the extension. Bandon Community Hospital occupies the site of Bandon Workhouse. The site is not listed as an RMP site nor in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. The Workhouse was built between 1840 and 1841 for £6,600 to house 900 inmates. The outer wall of the workhouse encloses an area of 1.04ha. After the famine the workhouse was used as a hospital until part of the building was burned in 1921. The building was rebuilt and opened as the District Hospital in 1929. The buildings are labelled as ‘Union Work House’ on the first edition OS map and as ‘Cottage Hospital’ on the second edition OS map.

Bandon Community Hospital is surrounded by a high stone wall which dates to the mid-19th century. Though some sections of the wall have been rebuilt and/or repaired the 19th century boundary is for the most part intact. The wall is 2.2-3m in height by 0.5m in depth. The new hospital extension is L-shaped in plan. The north-south section will adjoin an existing block of the hospital. The east-west section will breach a length of 25m of the 19th-century boundary wall.

No archaeological stratigraphy or artefacts were recorded while monitoring ground disturbance works associated with the construction of the extension. Architectural features associated with the former workhouse and the boundary walls were recorded. These included: 

• The base of the demolished walls of the front building of the workhouse and some of the cobbled yard to the rear of this building.

• part of a subterranean passage (L-shaped in plan) which was located at the south-east corner of the hospital complex. The base of the passage was located c. 4m below current ground level and it was 2m wide. It probably formed part of a water and/or waste water management system for the workhouse complex.

• The basal section of the external façade of part of the eastern boundary wall was recorded. There was a plinth at the base of the wall which extended 0.2m out from the upper façade. The wall was between 4-5m in height. The original ground surface was higher on the interior of the workhouse complex and the ground sloped steeply to the east (on the exterior).

Eachtra Archaeological Projects Ltd, Lickybeg, Clashmore, Co Waterford