2021:738 - Patrician Academy, Mallow, Cork

Archaeological testing took place at the site of the proposed development a new school building adjacent to the existing Protected Structure at the Patrician Academy in Mallow.

The Patrician Academy is a protected structure on Cork County Council’s Development Plan, RPS No. 78. It is also included in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage’s Interim Survey for Cork County (Reg. No. 20815078). The site does not include any recorded archaeological monuments or fall within a National Monuments Service Zone of Notification. However, the historic 25’ map of c. 1900 does indicate a burial ground to the south-west corner of the site.

A geophysical survey was conducted in available green spaces within the grounds of the school by Joanna Leigh Surveys in August 2021. No responses of archaeological potential were recorded. Modern landscaping and services were prominent in the data sets. It was not possible to fully survey the area where the burials were marked as the survey was severely restricted by modern flower beds, services, and tarmac areas.

The programme of testing was carried out on 27 September 2021 using a 12-tonne backhoe excavator with a 1.9m-wide grading bucket. In total 3 test trenches were excavated at the location of the burial ground, in overcast and showery conditions. Two additional test trenches proposed in the submitted method statement were omitted from the testing programme due to the presence of underground live gas mains, broadband and other critical services

Test trench 1 was aligned east-west and was excavated at the location of the ‘burial ground’. Towards the western end, at the location of a funerary monument, an area of deep fill (to a depth of approximately 600mm and measuring 1.2m in length east to west) was observed. The fill comprised 20^th-century rubble, sandy silty grey-brown clay and two large rectangular stone slabs (each measuring roughly 250mm x 300mm) along with general refuse. It appeared to have a vertical cut to the west where the compact subsoil rose to a depth of roughly 200mm for the remainder of the trench. This may represent the remains of a crypt and indicates that the burials purported to have been here have been effectively removed at some point in the past.

The two remaining north-south aligned trenches presented a consistent stratigraphy, with topsoil and sod overlying a mixed modern fill to a depth of between 200mm and 400mm over natural compact subsoil.

Nothing of archaeological significance was noted in the trenches.

Nonetheless it was recommended that topsoil stripping for the proposed development in the vicinity of the burial ground be monitored by a suitably qualified archaeologist.