2000:1006 - WATERFORD: Lady Lane, Waterford

The site is on the north side of Lady Lane on the line of the intramural city wall separating the ‘old’ Hiberno-Norse town from the walled Anglo-Norman suburb. The first historical mention of Lady Lane is in 1468 (Nicholls 1972, 109), and a gate on the lane is first referred to in a deed of 1483 (Dowling 1988, 105). The lane was in existence from the late 11th century, however, and it is likely that the gate on the intramural wall had been built by the 13th century. Bradley et al. (1988, 205) suggest that this consisted of twin round towers flanking an entrance passage. One such tower is shown on Philips’s map of 1685 surviving in the south-east corner of the site, and repairs to the gateway itself are mentioned in 1683 (Pender 1964, 232). The existence of an open fosse outside the gate until the late 15th century is attested in 1475, when the Corporation declared it unlawful to ‘putte…dunge, ramell or fylth…into Saynte Mary strete, nether into the Kyngs ditches, nor beside them from the markette crosse unto Arondelis gate’ (Gilbert 1885, 312).

Three test-trenches were excavated in June 2000, and the eastern boundary wall was surveyed. The trenches revealed the remains of a bank and fosse extending north–south across the site. The upper fills of this fosse contained pottery dating from the 12th to the 14th centuries. Above these backfill layers were garden soils dating to the 17th or early 18th centuries. Richard and Scale’s map shows a formal garden on the site in 1764, and the existing boundary wall probably dates to this period.

Further excavation of the site took place in January and February 2001. This uncovered remains of a gate tower to the south-east, and a section of the medieval fosse was excavated to subsoil. Details of this work will be included in Excavations 2001.

References
Bradley, J. et al. 1988 Urban Archaeology Survey. Part 13 (ii), Waterford. Unpublished, OPW.
Dowling, D. 1988 Waterford streets, past and present. Waterford.
Gilbert, J.T. (ed.) 1885 Tenth report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Appendix 5: Archives of the municipal corporation of Waterford.
Nicholls, K. 1972 Inquisitions of 1224 from the miscellanea of the Exchequer. Analecta Hibernica 27, 103–12.
Pender, S. 1964 Council books of the corporation: Waterford 1662–1700. Dublin.