County: Dublin Site name: Bloomfield House, Bloomfield Avenue, Donnybrook West, Dublin 4
Sites and Monuments Record No.: None Licence number: 15E0566
Author: Richard Crumlish
Site type: 18th-century house
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 716844m, N 732047m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.325767, -6.246003
Monitoring of groundworks at a residential development at Bloomfield House, Bloomfield Avenue, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, was carried out intermittently between 3 February 2016 and 4 May 2017. The monitoring was required as condition of planning by An Bord Pleanála. The development site was located along the north-west side of Bloomfield Avenue and contained three protected structures: Bloomfield House and its north and west wings known as Northfield and Westfield respectively. There were no recorded monuments located within or in the immediate vicinity of the development site.
Bloomfield House was built around the 1780s and was altered in the 1790s. The Society of Friends acquired the house in 1809 and the north wing, Northfield, was added in 1811. Westfield was built in the 1830s and extended in the 1900s, and again in the 1920s. The building was used as a psychiatric hospital.
Internally the groundworks consisted of a reduction in levels of 0.1-0.2m over the footprint of Westfield and Northfield for new floors. Within Bloomfield House the reduction in levels was of the order of 1m, including underpinning of the existing walls. Externally the groundworks consisted of those necessary for services, an attenuation tank, pedestrian access and landscaping. Nothing uncovered predated the construction of Bloomfield House in the late 18th century. Nothing of archaeological significance was in evidence.
4 Lecka Grove, Castlebar Road, Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo
