2024:566 - Beamish and Crawford, Cork, Cork

The Beamish and Crawford Quarter Infrastructure development is a public realm improvement scheme located in the southwest of the City Centre Island, linking the city’s medieval spine with the established commercial core of the City Centre island. The proposed development is located within “Beamish and Crawford/Grand Parade Quarter”, the redevelopment of which is identified in the Cork City Development Plan as Objective 10.14.

One of the objectives of this project is to provide two new pedestrian bridges linking Crosses’ Green to Lamley's Lane and Frenches Quay to the site for the New Event Centre. The portion of works at the Beamish and Crawford site, South Main Street, which lie to the east and north of the River Lee, and in proximity to the medieval town defences (CO074-034002), are being completed under Section 14 ministerial Consent.

Test-trenching identified a limestone wall at approx. 1.84m OD underlying the modern quay wall, which appears of similar construction to that identified by Purcell in 2023. This consists of a section of likely medieval wall, with abutting length of post-medieval rebuild, and appears to be the remains of the city wall.

1.1         Test-pit 1 (TP1)

This was the westernmost of the three test-pits. The northern section of this trench was not excavated to the required depth due to a large modern stone slab encased in concrete, with an underlying inactive cast-iron pipe that ran towards the quay wall. The southern half was excavated to a depth of 1.2m (approx. 1.8m OD). Fill material down to this depth consisted of material of modern infill material, dating to the 19th century or later. Below the two surfaces of tarmac was typical construction infill of brick, stone, cobbles, soil and mortar. No cut masonry was identified in this material. In all areas the 19th-century infill appeared to continue past the excavated depth.

Two brick culverts were identified at 1.2m Below Present Ground Level (BPGL) (1.8m OD). Culvert C001 was orientated north-north-east/south-south-west with an internal width of 0.4m. It was inactive and completely blocked with material typical to culvert features. Culvert C002 was orientated north-north-west/south-south-east with an internal width of 0.25m. Both culverts down-sloped slightly to the south, joining under the excavated depth, and ran to a pipe visible in the quay wall, with the river visible through this pipe.

Stratigraphy at this junction with the quay wall was impossible to determine, with a mixture of brick, stone and metal all being used to fashion this section, with no attempt made to present a neat structure. There was no evidence of the likely city wall identified by Purcell (2023) at this depth (See TP4 below).

 1.2         Test-pit 2 (TP2)

This was the easternmost of the three test-pits and was excavated to approx. 1.25m BPGL (1.75m OD). A modern ESB cable crossed the middle of the test-pit in a north-south alignment. Nothing was noted to the east of this ESB cable, despite the fact that it lay above the excavated depth. In all areas the 19th-century infill appeared to continue past the excavated depth. A single sherd of plain white pottery, likely 19th century in date, was identified at the base of the excavation area in the south-east.

To the west of the ESB cable was a brick culvert and stone wall. The culvert (C003) was identified at 1.2m BPGL (1.8m OD), orientated north-west/south-east, with an internal width of 0.3m. It was entirely blocked with culvert fill material, had a stone cap and slate base. It sloped slightly to the south-east and disappeared from view. Stone wall C004 was orientated north-north-west/south-south-east. The top of the wall was encountered at 1.1m BPGL (1.93m OD). This was 0.75–0.8m wide and solidly built, bonded with a damp/wet white lime mortar soft to the touch. Despite the fact that the ESB cable lay higher than the wall, C004 ended at this location. A small hand trench was excavated to confirm this.

A test section was excavated towards the wall in the south-east corner of TP2, to determine if the line of the city wall could be determined. This was excavated to approx. 0.3m from the quay wall. A second test-section was excavated in the south-west corner of TP2 towards the quay wall. This was excavated to the quay wall itself. This identified that the quay wall continued down to 1.2m BPGL (1.8m OD). At this point the wall stepped out by 0.3m before continuing deeper. Stonework appears to change at this depth, with the lower portion more in line with that identified in TP3 and by Purcell in 2023, suggesting this is a continuation of C005 (see TP3 below). The test slot was then excavated to 1.6m BPGL (1.4m OD). Material against the wall was soft wet dark brown silty clay (C006) with frequent small to medium stone (C006).

 1.3         Test-pit 3 (TP3)

This was excavated between Test-pit 1 & 2, with consistent modern 19th-century infill. The face of a solid stone wall (C005) was identified in the south-west edge of excavation, at 1.16m BPGL (1.84m OD), under a line of brick and early concrete. The test-pit was excavated deeper than the required depth to determine the nature of this structure. At approximately 1.2m BPGL (1.8m OD) the infill material changed to C006. The wet nature of this material caused it to be prone to collapse and slumping. A fragment of tin-glazed earthenware from directly adjacent to wall C005 (see below) provides an early 18th-century or later date for this infill.

Wall C005 was slightly out of alignment with the existing quay wall and the northern face was between 0.7m (at east) and 0.9m (at west) north of it. The wall continued down to 1.66m BPGL (1.34m OD) and stepped out 0.35m at this depth. A small hand-dug test-pit was excavated below this step to 2.06m BPGL (0.94m OD), and wall C005 continued below this depth. Below the step it appeared to be slightly battered, although this was difficult to determine as the sides constantly collapsed/slumped due to the soft wet nature of (C006). It is likely that this wall represents the same wall identified by Purcell in Trench 1 (2023: p11), interpreted as the likely remains of the city wall (ibid.: p14).

1.4         Test-pit 4 (TP4)

Following the results of TP3 it was decided to reopen TP1 and TP3, and excavate a wider area, to determine the line of Wall C005 . The previously encountered brick culverts in TP1 were removed and excavation continued deeper.

This revealed a continuation of Wall C005, originally identified in TP2 & TP3, orientated west-north-west/east-south-east and slightly out of alignment with the modern quay wall. Wall C005 was exposed for 1.85m and was 0.45m tall. The top was at approx. 1.15m BPGL (1.85m OD). No width was established. Fabric consisted of 3-4 uneven courses of roughly hewn limestone and occasional red sandstone, bonded with a soft/crumbly pink mortar. At 1.65m BPGL (1.35m OD) the wall stepped out 0.35m, or widened. The lower wall (C007) continued down 0.85m to 2.5m BPGL (0.5m OD) and consisted of 4–5 uneven courses of unbonded stone that sat beneath C005. In total, the surviving section of Wall C005 and C007 was 1.35m high, identified at approx. 1.85m OD and continuing down to 0.5m OD. The wall did not appear to continue deeper, but frequent stone was visible beneath C007 in C006, possibly foundation material. At high tide the water level submerged the lower levels of C007 to approx. 1.3m OD. The lack of bonding material in C007 may be due to continuous flooding, rather than lack of original mortar.

Wall C005 terminated abruptly at its western end, and another wall (C008) abutted against it. This was exposed for 5.3m, was 1m wide and 0.9m high (max), continuing down to a depth of 1.85m BPGL (1.15m OD). It appeared to terminate at this depth, but frequent stone was visible underneath. Wall C008 was not aligned with Wall C005, but turned slightly to the north—orientated north-west/south-east. It has been truncated to the west by brick culverts C001 and C002 and modern pipes. As such its highest recorded points lie between 1.6m BPGL (1.35m OD) and 1.2m BPGL (1.89m OD). The wall consisted of roughly hewn limestone, with occasional sandstone. The inner face (C008) was uncoursed/unevenly coursed. The outer (river side) face stones were more clearly fronted to present a flat wall face and continued beyond the excavation extent. It consisted of four regular courses of stone. At the western end the inner face abutted against a third unaligned wall section (C009). The river side continued outside the excavation extent.

Wall C009 was only exposed for a very short length at the western end of the trench and was in poor condition. The exposed section measured 0.55m north-east/south-west by 0.2m and 0.7m tall. Fabric consisted of roughly-hewn unevenly coursed stone, with 5 courses visible, bonded with a very light grey/cream mortar. The top of the wall was identified at 1.19m BPGL (1.81m OD) and it was exposed to 2.11m BPGL (0.89m OD). the northern face of Wall C008 abutted against this, but the junction could not be exposed in plan due to overlying concrete.

The deposit on the interior side of the wall was brown silty clay C006, as identified in TP2 & TP3. This has included a sherd of tin-glazed earthenware and sherds of glazed red earthenware, giving this material a likely date of late 17th to late 18th century. The deposit on the river side of the wall appeared to be modern 19th-century infill, with a mix of brick, stone, oyster shell and slate.