2016:056 - DUBLIN: 49 Talbot Street, 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.