1996:204 - KILKENNY: Abbey Street, Kilkenny

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Kilkenny Site name: KILKENNY: Abbey Street

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0047

Author: Martin Reid

Site type: Religious house - Dominican friars and Graveyard

Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)

ITM: E 650939m, N 656043m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.653190, -7.247139

Kilkenny County Council Main Drainage plans to route one of their pipes along Abbey St. The narrow street is adjacent to the Black Abbey, a Dominican church founded in 1225. The street is within the zone of archaeological potential as defined in the Urban Archaeological Survey for Kilkenny.

Eight test-trenches were excavated along the route of the proposed pipeline, from Black Mill Street in the west to Parliament Street in the east. These demonstrated that in the abbey area medieval burials survived underneath the road and in the area of the present carpark. A substantial defensive wall was also found to the west of the abbey, and this is seen as the perimeter wall for the grounds and cemetery of the Black Abbey.

The pipeline is also to pass under the medieval city wall in the area of the Black Freren Gate. In this area, test-trenching showed that the remains of medieval structures were extant; however, these were not deeper than 1.25m and so would not be disturbed by the pipe which is to be tunnelled underneath the base of the medieval deposits.

The excavation
After the site assessment was completed, it was decided to archaeologically excavate the pipe-trench (Cutting 2). This trench was approximately 115m long and 2–3m wide.

The defensive perimeter wall was more fully examined at the west end of the cutting. The north-south wall was 1.15–1.2m wide at the top and had a sloping external batter, 1.2–1.35m high, facing west. There was no east face as the wall was set against the cut in the form of a sloping revetment rather than as a free-standing wall at this level. Deposits of clay/silt had formed against the west face, and medieval finds, including several fragments of line-impressed floor tiles (fourteenth-century) were found in these deposits. The location of the Black Abbey outside the walls of the High Town meant that the construction of a defensive wall of their own was a sensible precaution.

The graveyard was located inside the perimeter wall. The nearest articulated remains were 5.5m from the wall, and the graveyard extended 61 m to the east along the line of the pipe-trench. Within this area, approximately 250 articulated skeletons were excavated under Abbey Street and under the carpark opposite the church. The cemetery was cut through by a seventeenth/eighteenth-century drainage ditch which removed a large number of the burials.

The eastern section of the pipe is to be tunnelled, and this meant the excavation of two 'thrust-bore pits' at either end of the section, and one 'receiving pit' in the middle. In the western pit, a drainage ditch of indeterminate date was excavated. In the central pit no archaeological features were present. In the eastern pit the foundations of a medieval building were found. This rectangular stone building was cut by an eighteenth-century mill-race, which was demolished and built on by a later mill-race enclosed in a tunnel. This pit was located in the carpark opposite the Smithwick's Brewery.

The excavation finished in December 1996 and post-excavation work is ongoing.

Flat 3, 28 Hannaville Park, Terenure, Dublin 6