EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Cork
The Scandinavian main street on the South Island lies beneath the modern South Main
Street. The excavated buildings on the South Island- Washington Street (Kelleher in prep;
Kelleher 2002; Hurley 2003a, 157-58), Hanover Street/South Main Street (Cleary 2003, 31-
44; Hurley 2003a, 158), 40-48 South Main Street/Old Post Office Lane (Ní Loingsigh 2003 &
2005), 35-39 South Main Street (Kelleher 2004), 15 South Main Street (Hurley & Trehy 2003,
29-30)- were aligned with or fronted onto the main medieval street. The Cork Main Drainage
Scheme excavations at 15 South Main Street and Washington Street involved trenches along
the South Main Street, confirming the medieval street was narrower than the modern street
and that many of the houses fronting onto the street are under the present street. The
excavated houses to the west of No. 15 South Main Street were 4.82m to the west of the
present street-fronting building.
Evidence for a track-way on the South Bank was uncovered which may have led down to the
river crossing and Scandinavian settlement on the South Island. The excavations at No. 3
Barrack Street (Fig. 67) directly to the South of the South Gate Bridge uncovered a timber
track- dated to A.D. 1085±5 - defined on its eastern side by a post and wattle fence and
horizontally laid timbers (Lane & Sutton 2003, 5-9). The track lay to the east of the modern
street and roughly follows the line of the (south-north) street down to the South Gate Bridge.
Only a small portion of the track-2.78m north-south by 1.52m east-west- was excavated and
failed to identify its western edge. It contained a number of layers of round wood branches
on the estuarine clay beneath a superstructure of timber planks and large roughly hewn tree
trunks. A single sherd of eleventh-century Normandy pottery was found inside the timbers of
the track.
Fig. 67: Plan of track-way at 3 Barrack Street, Cork (after Lane & Sutton 2003, 6).
There is limited but growing evidence for pathways leading from streets directly into property
plots, houses and outbuildings. Paths were uncovered leading between several Scandinavian
Type 1 and Type 2 buildings at the junction of South Main Street (40-48) and Old Post Office
Lane (Ní Loingsigh 2003 & 2005). A number of pathways and track-ways were also
associated with a series of Hiberno-Scandinavian-type houses at 35-39 South Main Street
(Kelleher 2004).
PLOTS AND FENCES
There is growing evidence for the layout of property boundaries along the main street (South
Main Street) of the twelfth century Scandinavian settlement on the South Island. These
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