County: Wexford Site name: WEXFORD: Townparks
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Edward Bourke, Wexford Corporation
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 704527m, N 621950m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.339189, -6.466062
Test excavations took place on six sites within the three designated areas for urban renewal in Wexford town.
Cornmarket
Only one test pit was excavated on this site as only one small yard was available for excavation, the rest of the site being covered by derelict buildings in a dangerous condition. This site produced dumped 19th-century material to a depth of 1 .5m
Redmond Place
(Meyler’s Garage)
Ten test pits were excavated with the aid of a machine on this site. The stratigraphy in all of these pits was similar. In each case the upper 0.3m-0.5m consisted of 19th 20th-century builders’ rubble. Below this, on the western side of the site, a deep deposit of black estuarine silt was encountered. On the eastern side, nearer the river, a deposit consisting of 18th-19th-century dump material 1.5m deep overlay the estuarine silt.
Wilson’s Yard/Imperial Bar
Three test pits were excavated and here again 19th-20th-century builders’ rubble directly overlay sterile estuarine mud on the western or landward side of the site. On the eastern side, closer to the river, a deposit of 19th-century dump material 1 3m in depth lay between the rubble and the estuarine silt.
These sites lie on land reclaimed from the River Slaney in the 18th and 19th centuries and stratigraphy encountered is consistent with the historical evidence for the reclamation.
West Gate/John Street
(West Gate yard)
Seven test trenches were excavated on this site. In all of them the stratigraphy was similar. Beneath the 20th-century floors and road surfaces, deposits of early 20th-century dump material, consisting mainly of waste from industrial iron working, was encountered. In some of the cuttings disturbed boulder clay and 19th-20th-century material was encountered beneath this deposit. These layers directly overlay bedrock and from the surface profile of the bedrock it is likely that this area was used as a quarry in the 19th century.
The site is bounded on the west by the town wall and on the south by the precinct of St. Selskar’s Abbey. It is clear that whatever medieval deposits existed inside the yard were subsequently removed by the 19th-century activity on site. Prior to the excavation, it was noted that the town wall stood directly on a deposit of boulder clay, 25m thick, standing proud of the ground level in the yard.
Temperence Row
Three pits were excavated and in all of them a deposit of 19th and 20th-century brick rubble and organic material 0.3m—0.5m thick was encountered, lying directly on marl or estuarine mud. On the western or landward side the marl lay directly on bedrock. On the eastern side the estuarine mud was not bottomed.
John’s Street
Four pits were excavated, in these the upper layer of humus contained early 20th-century pottery and bone, which overlay orange boulder clay, decayed shale and ultimately bedrock.
Municipal Buildings, Wexford
