Dublin
1999:236
14-15 WERBURGH STREET, DUBLIN
Viking/Anglo-Norman defences
O152337
99E0651
The assessment at 14-15 Werburgh Street (on the south of the entrance to Jury's carpark) found a sequence of defences on the southern side of the town, dating from the 10th century onwards. The earliest of these was part of an artificial clay embankment also found by Alan Hayden in a previous investigation to the immediate east (Excavations 1994, 31, 94E0025). In that assessment a series of sections through the bank was excavated, establishing it to have survived to 0.9m high by c. 5m wide. In the assessment under discussion a hard, green clay, interpreted as the top of the bank, was exposed at 2m below present ground level.

The remains of two city walls, orientated east-west, were also exposed, one on top of the other. The lower wall was tentatively identified as the Viking wall (dated to c. 1100 in Wood Quay), which was demolished at some date and reused as a foundation for a second, replacement wall, presumably dated to the Anglo-Norman period (after 1170). The earlier wall was cut into the clay bank and was built of limestone block; it had a small offset on the northern side. The wall was 1.7m wide and survived to 0.8m high, mortared with a light yellow, gritty mortar. It was comprehensively demolished when the second wall was built, and the facing-stones, on the southern side, were robbed out, presumably for reuse in the new wall.

The second, Anglo-Norman wall sat directly on the first but was narrower, 1.1m wide. Thus, although the second wall was flush with the Viking wall on the northern side, on the southern side the earlier wall projected out for almost 0.6m. There was some evidence, however (in the form of hand-made brick), that the southern side of the Anglo-Norman wall was refaced in the 17th century, resulting in a reduction in the width of the wall at that date. The Anglo-Norman wall was also bound with a yellow, gritty mortar, but surprisingly the lower three courses of a surviving stretch of 18th-century boundary wall, 2.4m long, were found to incorporate part of the city wall to a height of c. 0.45m.

Further investigations are expected to take place on the site in the near future.
Linzi Simpson, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd, 2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin.

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