What archaeologists uncovered in 1993 was a timber revetment, essentially a retaining structure of shaped wood used to line and stabilise the bank of a watercourse, dating to the mid-thirteenth century. Revetments of this kind were a practical medieval technology, holding earthen banks in place against the constant pressure of fast-moving water. That the wood survived at all is a small wonder, a consequence of the waterlogged conditions that can preserve organic materials for centuries underground in Dublin's alluvial soils.

The 1993 excavation established that the timber revetment formed the southern wall of what appears to have been a substantial, directed watercourse running to the north. The dating places construction in the 1240s, a period when Anglo-Norman Dublin was expanding rapidly and the organisation of water resources for milling and other industries was a serious urban concern. Among the finds recovered alongside the structural timbers were a leather scabbard and several shoes. Footwear turns up with some regularity in medieval Dublin excavations, partly because leather survives well in wet ground and partly because shoes were repaired and discarded near watercourses with some regularity. The scabbard is a more singular find, suggesting personal property lost or discarded at the water's edge. These objects were documented by Simpson in 1994.

The site lies within the north city area of Dublin, though the precise street location is not recorded in available sources. Visitors with an interest in the physical remnants of medieval Dublin will find that the most reliable route to understanding sites like this one runs through the city's archaeological institutions rather than the ground itself, since excavated urban sites are typically built over once investigation concludes. The finds from the 1993 dig, including the shoes and scabbard, would have passed into the care of the relevant national collections. Anyone tracing Dublin's medieval waterways more broadly might find it useful to read alongside the archaeology of the Liffey's northern tributaries and the documented mill sites that once clustered along them.