1987:52 - WATERFORD: St Peter's Church/Bakehouse Lane, Custom House, B Ward, Waterford

This site was one of four excavated within the known medieval boundaries of Waterford, under the supervision of Maurice F. Hurley, City Archaeologist,  prior to the proposed redevelopment of Waterford city centre.

The second phase of excavations began in May 1987 and the site now covers an area of 450sq.m. The remains of the church have been exposed down to 'natural' whilst excavation still continues on the property adjacent to the west of the churchyard.

The church and graveyards
Evidence for 5 phases of church buildings has been recovered in outline, i.e. in the form of walls or foundations. Interesting internal features have also come to light although 75% of the stratigraphy within and adjacent to the church was disturbed by burials, so it was impossible to adequately relate all the structural elements to given floor-levels.

The five major building phases are defined as follows:
1. A small, plain, rectangular stone structure with a stone altar (?12th century - probably pre-Norman).
2. An apsidal sanctuary added to the east end. This is the only known example in Ireland to have been found on a parish church (12th century).
3. A nave, 9.5m long, added to the west, thus producing a 3-cell plan with offsets from east west (13th century).
4. Demolition of structures 1 and 2 , chancel squared-off to produce a plain rectangular structure (?15th century).
5. Nave walls demolished to current ground level, side aisles and nave arcade erected - 4 bays on north side, 3 bays to south, the south aisle incorporating a near-contemporary structure which may never have been completed (17th century, i.e. probably before 1651, by a documented Jesuit mission).

Property to west of church
Bordering the narrow western graveyard was a stratified series of timber and stone structures occupying a single property, aligned south north, fronting to Peter St. The boundaries of this survived intact until 1986.

The earliest structure so far located is a substantial stone wall aligned north-south. A ditch should be found to the west of it as on the Lady Lane site (site 53, EXCAVATIONS, 1987).

The wall and ?ditch were succeeded by a series of timber buildings separated by thick layers of waterlogged organic refuse. These are currently producing a substantial quantity of Ham Green pottery (suggesting an earlier 13th-century date), as well as artefacts of wood and antler.

The organic fills 'surface' at c. 1.7m below present ground level and are overlain by almost a metre of stratified deposits of clay separated by thin layers of occupation refuse.

The next major phase was the construction of two conjoined stone undercrofts, the walls of which stand up to 2.2m high and are rendered internally. These are probably late 13th-century in date. These buildings were soon abandoned and filled with refuse which was then levelled up and overlain by a series of industrial hearths and associated flimsy walls. The latest hearth was coal fired and probably used for smelting. The earlier ones appear to have burned turf and may have been used for baking, hence the name of the narrow alley, 'Bakehouse Lane', which forms the western boundary of the site.

Planning Dept., Corporation, The Mall, Waterford, Waterford