2018:840 - New Children’s Hospital, James's Street, Mount Brown, South Circular Road, Dublin, Dublin

Archaeological monitoring of the Main Contracts Works for the New Children’s Hospital was undertaken by AMS Ltd between September 2017 and March 2018. The monitoring works were carried out in Areas 1-12, Linear Park and the VIE compound. Post-medieval features were encountered in three of the monitoring areas (Area1, Area 2 and Linear Park).

Area1
A cut-stone water feature was identified in the south-western corner of Area 1, abutting the north-western end of Linear Park and the eastern side of the South Circular Road. The water feature is a mid-nineteenth-century cut-stone structure associated with the canal located to the south, and a nineteenth-century canal basin/reservoir located to the east (early-to-late nineteenth-century). The feature measured approximately 8.55m in length, 4.1m in width and 2m in depth to the top of a flagstone surface; it was a cut-stone construct made from large individual cut-stone blocks bound together with a sand and mortar mix. It was semi-elliptical in shape, with a downward and outward sloping face. The feature was associated and coeval with the canal, and with a channel which once existed from a canal basin/reservoir situated to the east. It was also associated with a sluice/sluice gate located in Linear Park (see below), and with a water channel taking water from the Kilmainham Road through the western side of O’Reilly Avenue, east of Areas 9, 10, 12, through Areas 5 and 7 and along the western limits of Area 1. The water feature appeared to have been used to regulate water levels between the canal and canal basin/reservoir.

Area 2
During the Enabling Works phase in 2016 archaeological test trenches in this area revealed the remains of water channels connecting the Grand Canal (south) to a water reservoir (east). A trial pit was dug under archaeological supervision during the current works close to the location of former test trench T18 and evidence of a dry-stone, single course linear feature was revealed. The surrounding overburden was removed by mechanical excavator under archaeological supervision and showed it to be 4.2m in length (east-west). To the east nothing existed of the feature, to the west it abutted a late 19th-/early 20th-century yellow brick shallow drain. Both features were located directly north of the 19th-century linear water channels located on the historic OSI maps and found in previous test trenching. The linear feature may have been stone associated with the water channels, alternatively it may have been a section of stone drain, or an existing section of footpath edging associated with the late 19th-century structure built directly to the north.

Linear Park
Monitoring works within Linear Park, parallel to the Luas Red Line, were related to the relocation of the BAM compound from Area 8. Just south of the Rialto Luas stop within the area designated ‘BAM Offices’, a sluice/sluice gate water feature was revealed. The sluice/sluice gate feature comprised of cut/rubble stone and timber. It initially appeared from the section exposed and uncovered that the feature was a section of a canal docking bay, or sluice/sluice gate, incorporating steps/platform. Upon further examination and analysis, the feature revealed itself to be a sluice/sluice gate with steps and a platform. It was constructed of large cut-stone blocks and random rubble with mortar bonding. The section of the feature exposed and recorded comprised the remains of a narrow/shallow-bottomed sluice and wooden gate, with stone steps and a narrow platform. The sluice had a rectangular insert located at its northern end towards the sluice gate. The cut-stone facing at this location had a planked timber frontage. This was a sluice gate to let water off/on the canal into the canal basin, or vice versa. The timber frontage of the gate was double clad: horizontally laid timber was placed to the rear (c.0.35m from the stone facing) with vertical, damaged and decayed timber placed in front, faced with iron bands and nailed in situ. There were vertical channels cut into the stonework to allow the sluice gate to slide up and down. Towards the south, the stonework splayed outwards to the west and east into the canal. The feature was orientated north–south.

Unit 1 Hector Street Mills, Kilrush, Co. Clare