County: Kilkenny Site name: KILKENNY: Evans Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0076
Author: Edmond O'Donovan for Margaret Gowen and Co. Ltd.
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 650439m, N 656143m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.654135, -7.254511
An archaeological watching brief was carried out on a narrow site at Evans Lane in Kilkenny City on 19 and 23 April 1996 in response to the planning permission for the site. The site is located between Evans Lane to the north and the Rothe House complex to the south. The west end of the site comprises a series of 'pig sheds' built from reused limestone blocks. A limestone block building measuring 11 m east-west and 10m north-south was situated at the eastern end of the site. These buildings were demolished prior to the archaeological monitoring.
Archaeological investigations involved the opening up of two trenches on the line of two of the proposed foundation trenches. Trench 1 was 24m long by 1.07m wide and Trench 2 was 4.5m long by 1.07m wide. No archaeological soils or deposits were encountered in either trench.
Archaeological monitoring of the foundation trenches at the west end of the site revealed similar soil profiles to those encountered in the archaeological trenches. Natural gravels occurred close to the ground surface level along Evans Lane and the soils encountered contained red brick.
The monitoring at the east end of the site indicated that natural gravels dipped and were covered by a post-medieval brown/orange clay. Three rubble walls were recorded in the long foundation trench excavated along the south wall of Raffle House (the northern site boundary). They were orientated east-west and extended out from the Rothe House boundary wall. The two westernmost stone walls were partially built from red brick. The eastern wall was in thick, built of stone and bonded with a gritty green mortar.
Rath House, Ferndale Rd. Rathmichael Co. Dublin
