1989:057 - KILDARE CASTLE, Kildare, Kildare

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Kildare Site name: KILDARE CASTLE, Kildare

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number:

Author: Finola O'Carroll, c/o Dept. of Archaeology, University College Dublin

Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous

Period/Dating: Other

ITM: E 672835m, N 712331m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.156494, -6.910976

Introduction
The archaeological work was undertaken as Mr J. Tierney, Awood Construction Ltd., had acquired the premises of Graham's Bakery at Market Square and Nugent Street, Kildare, and wished to change the interior and use of the building. The north-west tower of Kildare Castle is believed to have been incorporated into Graham's Bakery. It was agreed by the owner that archaeological exploration of the area most likely to be affected would be carried out in advance of building, and supervision of foundation and service trenches would take place.

A two-storey structure built against the curtain wall of the castle and incorporated into the bakery occupies the north-west corner where the tower is believed to have been. The structure consisted of three walls forming an open-backed building, with the east wall abutting the curtain wall. The north-east corner has a batter which begins some 3m above ground level. The stonework is quite regular where it has not been interfered with, and is similar to that in the curtain wall itself. The north wall had two windows inserted, both set in concrete, and this has resulted in much of the wall being replaced by later stonework. The northwest corner contained a lot of brick and had no batter. The relationship between this structure and the curtain wall is difficult to determine as a concrete wall has been built against the junction of the two, and has removed part of both. The curtain wall is heavily overgrown at this point. As the north-west corner and the west wall, which was built of small stones and also contained red brick at the end, was the area most likely to be affected by the development, it was decided to investigate a cutting centred on the north-west corner in order to assess whether an earlier corner and wall had been re-modelled.

The excavation
An area 4.5m long and 1.75m from the north wall was opened. It extended 2.5m west of the west wall and continued for 1m along that wall. The western end of the trench had been interfered with by the insertion of a large man-hole and sewerage pipes within a concrete casing. A gas pipe had been laid here also. The foundation courses were revealed on both sides and on the north side consisted of one course of stones, averaging 0.3m x 0.2m, with a second course of rubble, averaging 0.1m in depth, beneath. This changed 0.5m from the corner and the upper stones were smaller and irregular for the remainder of the north and the west wall. These rested on a mixed grey/yellow marl which was 0.1m deep and overlay a deposit of sticky grey clay with charcoal, seashells (oyster and cockles), and mortar which was 0.55m deep. Below this was gritty yellow clay which initially had the appearance of boulder clay but proved to contain both charcoal and bone. One unidentifiable piece of iron came from the sticky grey layer. No other finds occurred.

As no features were present and the disturbance to that area would not exceed the 0.85m depth arrived at, digging ceased before natural was reached. No rubble consistent with either earlier foundations or a demolished wall came to light. The presence of apparently disturbed boulder clay may suggest the presence of a ditch associated with the curtain wall.

Foundation trench and service trench
A foundation trench 8m long was dug running northeast-south-west beginning 2.4m from the curtain wall. It was dug to a maximum depth of 1.4m below the existing concrete floor. In the north-east end it had been disturbed in its upper 0.65m by a sewerage pipe which was visible in section for 1.7m. Below the pipe was a layer of dark, soft, wet clay. The dark colour may be due to phosphates leaching from the sewer. This was 0.4m deep. An equally thin gritty yellow layer occurred beneath this. Both of these thin layers continued along the trench for about 6m before gradually disappearing. The yellow layer was occasionally stained with iron oxide. Beneath these was a layer of light brown clay, heavily charcoal-flecked, containing some animal bone. This was not bottomed. Towards the southwest end the trench became drier. The wet clay beneath the pipe gave way to a stony, dark brown loam. This lay on the light brown clay which was also drier in the south-west side. No finds were recovered from this trench.

A sewerage pipe was to be laid from the north-east corner of the above trench to the man-hole at the west of the 'tower'. A trench 7m long and 1.2m deep was dug. At the junction with the north- east corner of the foundation trench a similar arrangement of layers occurred and continued northwards for a short distance, but soon gave way to a uniform depth of charcoal-flecked light brown clay containing some pockets of iron pan. As the depth overall decreased somewhat from south to north to 0.7m, it can only be presumed that the disturbed material extended to at least a similar depth as in the trench above. No finds were recovered. In order to fill a condition of planning permission, the dismantling of the old shop-fronts on Market Square, Nugent Street and the corner of the two was observed on March 15th 1989. The wall behind that on Nugent Street was built using concrete blocks. The remaining two doorways were built using standard brick and with iron girders forming the lintels.The trial pit and monitoring of trenches took place over two days, April 8-9th 1989.