Franc Myles

(Posted 16.08.05)
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Introduction
The excavation of a development site on the corner of Ardee Street and Cork Street at the southern end of the Liberties of Dublin was undertaken between October 2003 and February 2004 by MGL. A monitoring phase in the early summer of 2004 resulted in a further phase of excavation in June.
 

The site was bounded to the east by the culverted course of the Abbey Stream, an artificially created watercourse constructed for the abbey of St. Thomas the Martyr at some stage after 1185. Bisecting the site from east to west was the Commons Water, a natural stream culverted by Dublin Corporation in the 1870s. The stream constituted the southern boundary of the medieval Liberty of St. Thomas Court and subsequently became part of the boundary of the city and was thus along the Riding of the Franchises. The Liberty of Donore, also within the possession of the abbey, extended to the south, outside of the city’s jurisdiction.

The excavation recorded evidence for the ponding of the Commons Water, presumably to create a head of water to power mills further downstream towards the city. Several medieval flood channels of the Abbey Stream were recorded on the eastern periphery of the site. Sealing this activity was evidence for a defensive bank erected by troops loyal to the duke of Ormond in the 1640s.

Medieval occupation
The ‘millpond’
The silted-up pond constituted the bulk of the medieval evidence on the site. The material was unfortunately quite sterile and nothing was recovered, despite there being documentary evidence for a drowning there in the fifteenth century. The pond followed the natural contour of the valley and would have been up to 2.75m deep when fully flooded.

The pond first appears on the documentary sources at a point somewhere between 1181 and 1212, but may well have existed prior to the foundation of the abbey, within whose lands it was situated, in 1177.

There was no evidence recovered to indicate what had actually blocked the Commons Water, thus creating the pond. There may however be a rise in the subsoil to the west of the site (underneath a protected structure), which would have assisted the process.

A secondary consideration here is the presence of the Abbey Stream. This was brought through the area at some stage prior to the mid thirteenth-century and would have constituted a major feat of engineering. Local topography suggests that it would have been unnecessary to have raised the watercourse above the ground surface and it is thus unlikely that it was brought along a raised embankment.
 

The Riding of the Franchises
The route of the Commons Water formed part of the tri-yearly procession around the bounds of the city by the mayor, sheriffs, aldermen and guilds. This was a major event in the civic life of the city and is accordingly well documented in J.T. Gilbert’s Calendar of ancient records of Dublin.

The route of the procession through the monastic liberties went to arbitration in 1527. It would seem that on previous years, damage had been caused to the abbot’s meadow to the west of the pond and that the abbey had petitioned for rerouting the procession. The court found in favour of the city and the traditional route was confirmed, with some concessions made to the abbey. The mayor, bailiffs and commons were permitted to proceed,

However, only the mayor, bailiffs, aldermen, sword bearer and macebearers were permitted to proceed across the pond and through the meadow, and only then on foot without the horses, ‘doing as little prejudice or hurt unto the said meadow as they can’. The remainder of the procession had to take to the nearby highway.

This account strongly suggests that the pond had silted up by 1527. The 1603 account of the Riding confirms this and on that occasion planks were laid down by the earl’s men in order for the procession to pass over what by now must have been a swamp.

In any case, the Commons Water continued to flow through the valley and was brought underneath the Abbey Stream, where it then ran counter-topographically before returning to its original course down the Coombe.

Wycesthames Gate
Just to the northeast of the site stood Wycesthames Gate, effectively the southern entrance to the abbey precinct. Peter Walsh’s suggestion that the variant names Washams, Waxhams or Whiteschams, may be a corruption of withershins, meaning counter-clockwise, is an attractive one; with some little effort of the imagination, the two watercourses running in opposite directions can be easily visualized at this location and this may have been remarkable enough to have given the adjacent gate its name.

The Abbey Stream flood channels
The post-medieval culverted Abbey Stream lay just outside the limit of the excavation, although it was exposed and recorded on the southeastern boundary of the site. To the west of this, four intercutting channels were recorded, representing frequent episodes of flooding. A small quantity of local medieval pottery was recovered and Alan Hayden, who excavated the same features just to the south, recovered several late medieval shoes from the silts.
 

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