2023:832 - The Bishop's Walk, Cashel Town Park, St Patricksrock, Cashel, Tipperary

In 2023, archaeological monitoring was carried out of upgrade works to the Bishop’s Walk, in the townland of St Patricksrock, Cashel, County Tipperary. The Bishop’s Walk, which is over 300 years old, was a private pathway that linked the archbishop’s residence at the Cashel Palace with their cathedral on the Rock of Cashel. The upgrade works formed a standalone element of the wider development of the Cashel Town Park and associated public realm works in Cashel.

The Cashel Town Park site comprises sloping pasture dotted with mature trees that represent the remnants of the formal pleasure gardens of the Cashel Palace glebe. The Bishop’s Walk consists of a raised sinuous walkway that extends for c.165m from the former Palace through the eastern part of the site in a northerly direction towards the ecclesiastical buildings on the summit of the Rock of Cashel. An undesignated mound, which is suggestive of a possible barrow with a diameter of c.10m, is incorporated into the banks of the Bishop’s Walk at its mid-point. To the south, the Walk incorporates a flight of stone steps and two retaining walls.

The area of the proposed Cashel Town Park is located within the Zone of Notification for the historic town of Cashel (TS061-025—); another possible mound-barrow (TS061-025157-) is located in the centre west of the site, c.70m due west of the Walk. Archaeological testing in the subject site under licence 19E0427 in 2019 and 2020 uncovered evidence for medieval settlement in the east and west of the site, including structural remains and ditched features. To the north, the State-owned lands at the Rock of Cashel is a national monument (NM 128), which is also included on Ireland’s World Heritage Tentative List, as one component of the Royal Sites of Ireland.

The archaeological works involved the hand excavation of the footings for a timber ramp/boardwalk located inside the north-eastern gate of the Cashel Town Park. Additionally, all groundworks associated with the Bishop’s Walk upgrade were archaeologically monitored and the spoil was scanned with a metal detector. A Built Heritage Survey was also carried out in advance of the conservation and repair works to walls, steps and other structural elements that form part of the Walk.

The key findings from the work included the discovery of reused architectural fragments incorporated in the historic steps of the Bishop’s Walk, which were cleaned by hand, recorded and reused in the repairs. A possible ditch orientated east–west was uncovered at the southern end of the site, at the carpark entrance to the Bishop’s Walk. The feature, which was exposed at formation level only, was covered with a geotextile layer sealed with a layer of sand, with the gravel footpath surface laid above the sand. The feature will not be further impacted by machinery movements, as the Walk is only accessible to pedestrians.