County: Kilkenny Site name: KILKENNY: Abbey View, New Building Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0231
Author: Malachy Conway for Margaret Gowen and Co. Ltd.
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 650239m, N 656043m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.653255, -7.257482
An archaeological assessment was carried out for planning purposes at a site known as Abbey View on 29 August 1996. The site is located at the south end of a laneway running parallel to New Building Lane. The site overlooks the Black Abbey and a portion of the town wall forms the western perimeter of the site, placing it within the zone of archaeological potential identified by the OPW Urban Archaeological Survey. New Building Lane lies within a thirteenth/fourteenth-century suburb between Hightown and Irishtown. Rocque's map of Kilkenny (1758) depicts the site off New Building Lane as a garden area.
Three trenches of varying length were mechanically excavated. Trenches 1 and 2 were positioned in the northern part of the site and Trench 3 was placed towards the south, perpendicular to the town wall. Trenches 1 and 2 were excavated to depths of 1.5m and 2m respectively, revealing a simple stratigraphic sequence of black garden soil containing animal bone, shell, stone, brick and mortar (0–0.7m depth) above orange clay with gravel and bone (0.7m to 1–2m depth). The basal deposit comprised grey gravel with angular and subangular stones and pebbles (1–2m± depth).
Excavation of Trench 3 revealed a cavity running parallel to the town wall. The cavity, 0.55m wide and c. 1m deep, was formed by the construction of a ground-heightening platform within the site abutting the inside of the town wall. The platform measured 5m east-west and was composed of grey-brown compacted gravel and soil containing animal bone, post-medieval and modern pottery, with occasional large stones and boulders (0.6–1.3m deep) over a dumped deposit of orange clay and black soil (1.3–1.8m deep) lying on the sterile yellow/grey sandy clay. Elsewhere within Trench 3, the soil profile consisted of black garden soil (as above) which lay directly above yellow-grey sandy clay.
Test-trenching did not reveal anything of archaeological significance. However, a visual examination of the present condition of the town wall section forming the western perimeter of the site drew attention to instability, especially in the upper section of wall. This led to recommendations for examination by the structural engineer to stabilise and preserve the wall and the exclusion of services, etc., within 1m of the inner wall course.
Rath House, Ferndale Rd, Rathmichael, Co. Dublin
