2016:056 - 49 Talbot Street, Dublin, Dublin

Two test-trenches were mechanically excavated at a proposed development site to the rear of 49 Talbot Street on 11 and 12 August 2016. The earliest deposit surviving on site was a layer of sticky silt loam clay, probably a variation of inter-tidal sleech. It was not truly ‘natural’ as some flecks of charcoal and sea shell were noted within the matrix. Over this lay a layer of late 18th-/early 19th-century garden soil. A red brick and slate drain was laid within this layer, with the recovery of a stoneware vessel confirming the late date. This was in turn sealed by rubble layers dating to the 19th century and later, into which a series of drains and service lines had been laid. No deposits of archaeological significance were identified in any of the trenches. The test-trench horizons seem to reflect the cartographic sources, which suggest that the development site was open ground until the later half of the 18th or early 19th century.

AHC Ltd, 36 Ballywillwill Road, Castlewellan Co Down