2024:140 - Clery's former warehouse, 13-15 Earl Place, Dublin 1, Dublin

The site is located to the rear of the former Clery Department store at 13-15 Earl Place, Dublin 1 and was the site of the former warehouse buildings for Clery’s department store, O'Connell Street, Dublin. Testing was carried out in January 2024 as part of a planning condition for the client and current owner, Whitbread PLC.

The site was purchased by Whitbread PLC in 2022 for the construction of a Premier Inn Hotel. At the time of purchase, all the former Clery’s warehouse buildings were completely demolished, and demolition rubble taken off site. The entire site perimeter was also piled and capped creating a continuous pile wall around the site. The pile cap is up to 1.5m wide in places and level with the street level of Earl Place. All the internal structural piles were also completed.

At the time of testing the ground level consisted of a flat compacted stone/clay surface located at a depth of c.1.2m below street level of Earl Place (street level = c.0.85m OD). The tops of some of the internal piles were also partially visible at ground level.

The testing and exposure of the piles revealed that the upper levels of the natural strata lie at depths of between 1m to 1.4m below street level (Earl Place). The deposits consist of loose gravel deposits and lenses of sandy clay which extend to depths of at least 3m below street level (c. -2.3m OD). It was also revealed that most of the eastern end of the site was dug out to depths of at least 3m below present ground level. This was done during or soon after the piling operation as the backfill deposits contained modern concrete fragments, steel and timber.

There was no evidence of any prehistoric activity, medieval structures or deposits revealed in the test trenches. However, in Trenches 1 and 10, features dating to the post-medieval period were identified. In Trench 1 (south-east corner of the site) a section of an 18^th-century limestone wall was partially exposed. The wall is probably the remains of a property boundary located to the rear of the Marlborough Street houses – as depicted on Rocque’s 1756 map of Dublin. At the southern end of Trench 10, post-medieval deposits were also revealed. These deposits may be part of a large dump deposit or garden soil dating to the 18/19^th century. Its probable most of these deposits were truncated in recent times during the construction of the warehouse buildings.

Most of the site has been excavated to subsoil during the piling insertion (previous owner). Archaeological testing and monitoring of the pile grubbing showed that 95% of the site has been truncated.

Due to the presence of post-medieval material in two locations, it is recommended that an archaeologist monitor the site excavation works including ground stripping/ground reduction. Particular attention should be paid to the south-east and north-west quadrants of the site where post-medieval features, such as masonry structures, garden soil deposits, pits and cellar structures may survive. And that the service trench to Earl Place be monitored.

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