2022:932 - Laughanstown Park House, Cherrywood, Dublin 18., Dublin

Archaeological testing was carried out at Lehaunstown Park House, Cherrywood, Dublin 18. The structures within the site include a two-storey T-shaped farmhouse, built on and around a 16th-century Tower House (RMP DU026-093), a two-storey L-shaped stables/coach house, farmyard walls, stone boundary walls and further subdivision walls, entrance gates, pillars, and ruins. The lands include the farm gardens, access, stable yard, working yard, protected trees, and fields enclosed by a high wall.

Ten test trenches totalling 230m were opened across the site. An extensive cobbled stone surface occupied the area directly in front of the stables. The cobble surface which was covered, measures c. 25m (northeast – southwest) by 40m (east – west), and was in good repair with some damaged or sunken sections visible. The cobbles ran parallel to and conformed with the layout of the buildings shown on the 1909 OS Mapping and are therefore likely to be 19th century in date, associated with the construction of the stable block.

A small area of metalling was exposed to the rear of the stable block building; it was overlain by a layer of crushed granite, slate and compact mortar, thought to be construction material associated with the 19th-century stable block. Given the depth of the surface and its difference in composition to that at the front of the stables, it is possible that the stone surface may be associated with the 18th-century farmyard or the earlier 16th-century tower-house. The area to the north of the stable block and to the east of the site appears to have been scarped and in places sealed by a 19th-century construction layer of very compact crushed granite.

No finds, features or deposits of archaeological interest were identified during this phase of testing.

Two additional test trenches were completed in 2024 as part of a licence reactivation, across a proposed attenuation area on the right-hand side of the formal entrance drive into the site. A modern refuse pit and a linear cultivation furrow were identified. Nothing of archaeological significance was identified within the additional trenches opened.