2018:291 - 61-62 Thomas St, Dublin

The site lies within the zone of archaeological potential for the historic city (DU018-020), 0.2km west of a section of medieval city wall at Back Lane/Lamb Alley. Assessment and test trenching of the site completed in 2016 identified significant historic fabric within the existing buildings to the front of the plots and a medieval tannery to the rear. Cartographic and historic analysis has demonstrated that the plots may have been extant since at least the seventeenth century.

Excavation was undertaken from 24 May to 6 June 2018. Additional monitoring of construction works to underpin the adjacent building in No. 60 and remove a ramped area at the southern end of the site was completed between 9 and 24 August 2018.
The excavation revealed a substantial medieval tannery covering the two plots to the rear of the Nos 61 and 62. It comprised a haphazard arrangement of large pits cut into the underlying subsoil and boulder clay. The pits varied widely in form, many were lined with clay and all were filled with dark brown/back silty deposits, containing significant amounts of well-preserved organic remains. There were several phases to the tannery with re-cuts of existing pits and intersecting pits identified in several locations. The tannery is thought to have been primarily in use during the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries. This estimation is based on preliminary analysis of the recovered finds assemblage, and the results of the 2009 excavation of the adjacent Nos 63–4 plots (Carroll 2012).

Evidence for later medieval activity on the site was confined to a small number of soil horizons, an oven and kiln and a truncated cobbled surface. Post-medieval and later activity was most evident to the rear of No. 62 where remains of multiple cobbled and flagged surfaces along with remnants of walls and occasional brick built features were identified. Contemporary features to the rear of No. 61 were fewer but included a rough cobbled path along the western site boundary and several drains. Wells were located to the rear of both properties. A number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century features were identified across the site, the most notable being a red brick latrine at the southern extent of the No. 62 plot.

The excavation produced a large artefact assemblage of over 4000 objects, predominantly medieval pottery but also leather, wood, bone, ivory, metal, stone, glass, textile, amber and different ceramic types. Samples of soils, plant remains, wood and animal bone were also recovered. Post-excavation analysis is ongoing at the time of writing.

Reference:

Carroll, J. 2012. ‘Excavations at 58-59 Thomas Street/Vicar Street and 63-64 Thomas Street, Dublin 8’. In S. Duffy (ed.), Medieval Dublin XII, 161-88. Dublin.

Archaeology and Built Heritage, Spade Enterprise Centre, St. Paul's Smithfield, Dublin 7