2024:629 - Emmet Street (Burgagery-Lands West Townland), Clonmel, Tipperary

Archaeological monitoring was undertaken of the change of use into a residential unit of  a derelict building at Emmet Street, Clonmel. Planning permission has been obtained to convert this property, which was formerly a coach house, into a residential unit including a two-storey extension and a cobbled yard to facilitate car-parking. The works are within the constraint area for the Historic Town of Clonmel (TS083-019).   The development site is located in the east part of the zone of archaeological potential, situated c. 30m to the east of the eastern circuit of the town wall where it extended on an approximate north-south axis close to the east end of  Market  Street.

Associated with a large house built c. 1835, the derelict Coach House comprises a two-storey building with single-storey lean-to extension on the east side of its northern elevation, unroofed since 2005, and a yard area to the west of the lean-to extension.

Ground works for the change of use of the derelict building to a residential unit were limited, entailing the reduction of the site by no greater than a depth of 250mm.  The site had been covered with concrete with an underlying cobbled surface. The west part of the interior of the Coach House site was dominated with a spread of mortar and broken stone. The east part of the interior was highly disturbed due to the presence of a wall foundation, the remains of a red brick chimney breast on the foundation wall and a subterranean concrete-built sump measuring 1m x 900mm and at least 500mm deep.   Located 3m from the site’s east end, extending north-south across the east end of the site, this wall was the remains of the original east gable wall of the building, the scar of which is still apparent. The building was later extended eastwards by 3m. This later extension was of red brick construct.

The ground works in the northern half of the site, i.e. the location of the two-storey extension and new cobbled yard, also entailed very shallow excavation works, between 200mm and 250mm. In places there were the remains of a concrete surface and directly beneath sections of an underlying cobbled surface. In the west part of the site, underlying the cobbled surface, was a very thin deposit of brown sandy silt clay.  This deposit only survived in the part of the site that always served as a yard and would have been exposed to the elements. Beneath the surfaces and the thin deposit of brown sandy silt clay, the site was dominated by a disturbed layer, mixed mid- to dark brown coarse-grained sandy gravel clay with frequent stone inclusions which extended to the formation level. Given the very shallow depth of the excavations the likelihood of uncovering archaeological features/remain was negligible.