Location
License No.
Description
When work began on the southern side of Shandon Street, the foreman was informed of a ‘cellar’ beneath the street adjacent to No. 60a Shandon Street, a listed building known locally as the Debtors’ Gaol. The building is part of a block of 19th-century houses that are protected structures on the grounds of architectural merit. All four buildings are basemented, but adjoining the northern side of the basements is a stone cellar that lies partially beneath Shandon Street. Although the interior (c. 6m by 8m) is rendered with what is probably a 19th-century mortar, the broad arch of the cellar suggests an early 18th-century date for the structure. It is built almost exclusively of large red sandstone slabs and, while there was a substantial amount of rubble and soil in the cellar when viewed, the floor seems to be of clay. In the south-eastern corner of the cellar, stone steps lead up to a brick-blocked exit that would originally have provided access to street level. On Shandon Street, the top of the cellar lies directly beneath the modern tarred road. The roof was partially damaged in the 1970s by digging to insert Telecom ducts. The ducts were eventually inserted through the cavity of the cellar, damaging both the western end wall and the north- western corner of the structure. An architectural/structural survey of the cellar was completed; the current street works were redesigned to avoid the structure and a protective reinforced concrete shell was constructed over and around it. A 7m-stretch of sandstone and limestone wall was recorded parallel to the northern wall of the cellar. This represents the foundations of the street-fronting façade of a house that originally stood over the cellar, indicating the 18th-century southern line of Shandon Street. To the south-west, several short sections of an adjoining, partially demolished and filled-in cellar were recorded as the drainage work continued. The rubble fill included a dump of 19th-century clay pipes from FitzGerald’s clay -pipe factory on nearby Adel aide Street. Griffith’s property valuation of 1852 records several other cellars along Shandon Street, but the example adjoining No. 60a is the only known extant one. Elsewhere along the southern end of Shandon Street, short stretches and protrusions of demolished buildings were recorded, all of which were post-medieval/modern. Two short stretches of in situ cobbling were recorded at a depth of c. 0.9 – 1.1m below the modern street surface – these were probably contemporary with the cellars and their associated buildings. The eastern side of a central stone culvert has been recorded in parts of the trench and several smaller stone culverts have also been exposed. In 2004, drainage work will continue northwards along Shandon Street. The Shandon Street area streetscape renewal scheme commenced in April 2003 and was initially monitored by Gina Johnson (Excavations 2003, No. 233). The scheme was temporarily halted and recommenced in November 2005. The licence was then transferred to the author and
Shandon Street and Bob and Joan Walk, Cork
02E1378
Integrated Urban Strategy, Shandon, Cork Baseline archaeological assessment
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