County: Dublin Site name: Iveagh House, 80-81 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DU 018:020-519 Licence number: 19E0807
Author: Linzi Simpson
Site type: Urban post-medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 715913m, N 33134m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.336538, -6.259376
Archaeological works took place at the rear (south) of the Iveagh House (DU018:020-519), in advance of the construction of a memorial garden (X715913 Y33134) and the installation of ESB points along the access lane (to the rear of Nos 72-77). The memorial garden was to be located in south-east corner of the Iveagh House garden in an area which was formerly part of the Iveagh Gardens, the first garden of which dated from the early 18th century. The features in the immediate environs includes a rusticated boat-house and an infilled pond, installed when the gardens were re-modelled during the construction of the Great Exhibition of 1865. This large oval pond was subsequently infilled in the late 19th century after which time the boat-house and the site of the pond were walled off and separated from the Iveagh Gardens, becoming part of the private garden of Iveagh House.
The memorial garden was proposed for the south-west corner of this extended garden and two test-pits were excavated, both measuring 1.5m square by 1m in depth. The profile consisting of mixed brown clay containing occasional 18th-and 19th-century brick, sealing boulder clay. Subsequent monitoring of the works revealed the ground had been artificially raised.
A long trench (27m) orientated east-west was also located to the east of the garden (X715943 Y733129), along the access route, accessed via Earlsfort Terrace. The historic maps reveal that the trench lies within part of the Winter Palace, built as part of the Great Exhibition of 1865. The trench measuring 0.5m in width by between 0.6m and 0.7m in depth and it revealed that the general ground level has been infilled to at least 0.7m in depth, the lowest infill deposit composed of brown/grey sticky clay with charcoal fleck, mortar and occasional brick fragments. This was sealed in places with a crude limestone rubble deposit and a second deposit of organic clays with brick rubble. The demolition rubble is probably from the demolition of the Winter Palace of the Great Exhibition, which was eventually dismantled and sold off.
28 Cabinteely Close, Old Bray Road, Cabinteely Dublin 18
