County: Galway Site name: Vicar Street, Tuam
Sites and Monuments Record No.: GA029-199 Licence number: 17E0471
Author: Richard Crumlish
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 543481m, N 751779m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.512951, -8.852137
Monitoring of site investigations in advance of a proposed development was carried out on 17 and 18 October, at the former Grove Hospital on Vicar Street in Tuam, County Galway. The monitoring was a condition of planning granted by An Bord Pleanála and was necessary as the site was located within the constraint for the historic town of Tuam (GA029-199).
The history of the site dates back to the construction of 'Grove House' in 1782. The site was later used as a diocesan school from 1860 to 1862. It then became a Bon Secours hospital, which opened in 1945 and has been vacant since 2009. The extant former hospital building has elements of the three phases described above. The surrounding grounds include landscaped lawns, an orchard and a number of modern outhouses. No features of archaeological significance were visible within the proposed development site.
Six engineering trial pits were excavated around the perimeter of the building, while two percolation test pits were also excavated in the grounds. The trial pits measured 1-1.6m long, 0.6-1m wide and 0.45-1.5m deep. The test pits measured 1.8-2m long, 0.7-1.1m wide and 1.75-1.9m deep. The six trial pits revealed evidence associated with the extant former hospital building, i.e. concrete and tarmac on the surface, above rubble fill and the concrete foundations of the building. Below the fill and the foundations were natural subsoils. The first of the percolation test pits revealed natural and undisturbed stratigraphy while the second revealed a landscaped lawn above modern fill, above original topsoil, above natural subsoil. There was little or no evidence of pre-20th-century activity. Nothing of archaeological significance was uncovered.
4 Lecka Grove, Castlebar Road, Ballinrobe, County Mayo
