Preservation by Record

Dick “dick” Roche. Or maybe Martin “dick” Cullen. One of those Ministers Against the Environment, at any rate.

It’s probably my least favourite euphemism in the entire planning, architecture and conservation spheres, and has absolutely no place in a supposedly modern society.

ah but it will be done by professionals professionally, and we can’t question those professionals professionalism

Oh, and the medieval Bishop’s Palace building at Kevin Street was not demolished. It was “preserved by record”. I know because it says so in the OPW planning application report.

@gunter wrote:

@gunter wrote:

@Devin wrote:

Oh, and the medieval Bishop’s Palace building at Kevin Street was not demolished. It was “preserved by record”. I know because it says so in the OPW planning application report.

I am not going to justify the demolition of this, but I will say that in this instance with the decision already made by others, the archaeologists are doing as best they can in such circumstances.

Oh – and the removal of JC Decaux billboards is no loss either.. The only question is why were they allowed on state-owned land for so long; who benefited?

the archaelogist arn’t doing their best, you employ a archaeologist to get the result you want.

@lostexpectation wrote:

the archaelogist arn’t doing their best, you employ a archaeologist to get the result you want.

I don’t think there are too many instances of the archaeologists suppressing information on finds, but there is the suspicion that some of them down-play the significance of up-standing remains, particularly structures from that grey area, between the medieval stuff, that they’d stab each other in the back to get at, and the post 1700 stuff that they see as having nothing got to do with them.

One of the problems with the current planning process is that it’s too easy for Planning Departments to lump all heritage concerns in with the archaeological assessment of the site (there are frequently two or more pages of archaeological requirements attached to a decent request for Additional Information). This gives the appearance of a deep ‘heritage consciousness’ to the process, when in truth, archaeologists have no interest in post medieval material and, it could be argued, have actually a vested interest in permission being granted for demolition and site clearance. You can’t really get out the bucket and space if there’s all these crumbling early 18th century buildings in the way.

exactly what i was going to say, is it really an archaeologists job to deal with a building like that, is there another type that would deal with buildings, when would these archaelogist with a victorian mindset ever choose to leave a building be rather then dissect and catalogue it. you can’t shift the blame to somebody else when they agree with the policy and they don’t get to do their job and be paid for it unless they participate in the demolition.

I’ve banged this drum before, but, IMO, the archaeological community take too narrow, detached and academic a view of their role.

They just don’t see the irony of burrowing holes in the ground to establish academic facts about earlier periods, while the fabric of the city is bulldozed around them. The ‘Frawleys’ proposal, Reg. no. 3202/08 (discussed on the Thomas St. / James’ Street thread) would be a case in point.

For some reason, neither the full Request for Additional Information, nor the interim Planner’s Report. has been scanned up on the DCC website, but from what I remember of seeing it at the planning counter, the report was light weight stuff and even managed to mix up the street numbers so that the only buildings that the developer was specifically asked to investigate were nos. 34 – 35, (the Art Deco block) i.e. the only bit of the site where they wont find early 18th century structures!

The one useful thing the developer was asked to do in the A.I. was to establish, archaeologically, whether there were any medieval remains ‘up-standing’ in the deep basement areas of the existing structures.

This request seems to have been prompted, in the first place, by an inter-departmental report from DCC’s own Archaeological Section, dated 23 July.

A normal person would realize that these structures, with the exception of nos. 34-35, are significant early 18th century structures on an important urban site where it is evident that there has been continuous development since early medieval times and where there is a good chance that this continuity is reflected in parts of the lower building fabric.

Unfortunately, Archaeologists are normal people and so, disturbingly, we get this kind of thing in a follow up report from the same in-house archaeological team, dated 1 Sept. :

I’ve underlined the key words.

The whole thrust of the Archaeologist’s report presumes that Permission will be granted and that demolition will occur. It only gets into specifics about what the developer can and can’t do after demolition has taken place, you know, so that anything significant can be ‘preserved in-situ, or preserved by record’ !

Talk about missing the point!

Many thanks for all the posts, this has been a very interesting discussion.It seems irrational that an archaeologist would have any input into whether or not an 18th century building be demolished as their profession deals primarily with “remains” (Im sure ive annoyed someone with that statement but no disrespect intended). Surely the Conservation Officer in Dublin City Council should have been consulted as to whether or not this building should be retained. However if the building is not in an ACA or is not a protected structure then it may have been difficult to save it.

@blaise wrote:

. . It seems irrational that an archaelogist would have any input into whether or not an 18th century building be demolished as their profession deals primarily with “remains”

How is the 18th century building not ”remains”?

First day in archaeology school you learn that archaeology is the study of pre-history, but how do you define ‘history’ in the context of an early 18th century house that you know almost nothing about? and how is it’s ‘history’ of lesser importance than the ‘history’ of some medieval out building that may lie underneath it.

In the case of Frawleys (as mentioned above) we don’t know what the history of the house is, the guys who want to knock it down think it’s ‘Victorian’, or say they do. We’re aware of some documentary indications that this house, or a similar predecessor on the same site, may have been the town house, and/or business premises, of the prominent early 18th century Quaker banker called Fade, but we’re not aware, and the Planning Office don’t seem to be aware, of any hard documentary evidence that tells us anything like the full history of the house. In the absence of documentary evidence and because the structure has obviously been altered and ‘modernized’ over the years, the true value of the structure, it’s origins, and the activities of it’s occupants etc. are as much ‘pre-history’ to us as any Viking cess-pit.

Archaeologists can and should have a role to play in answering these questions.

What we don’t want to hear, as the answer to a direct question about the possibility of the basement walls incorporating medieval fabric, is this bullshit that there’s a ‘concrete slab’ in the way and we can’t expect to find that out until after the houses are demolished.

With the standard of Building Assessment Reports being submitted by developers’ architects and without active archaeological input on sites like this, the City Council Conservation Officer has little more than gut feeling to go on when trying to advise a Planning Officer whether a structure like this, that hasn’t been put on the ‘List of Protected Structures’, should be allowed to be demolished, or not.

BTW, if you were talking about me, you can rest assured, I’m not annoyed with you,
just a little disappointed.

Gunter, I stand corrected fair points, thanks for the post. And of course nobodies opinion should be excluded and there is a lot to be said for removing the ‘silo’ situation that can occur with different professions.