County: Kilkenny Site name: KILKENNY: Patrick Street/Pudding Lane/ Pennyfeather Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Judith Carroll
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 650499m, N 655724m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.650365, -7.253689
Trial-trenching took place on a proposed development site in the heart of the medieval city of Kilkenny, stretching from the city walls to the centre of the city at Pudding Lane. Two phases of archaeological work took place: a paper/field survey, including a survey of the Myler’s Tower area of the city walls, a historical background report and a synopsis of previous excavations, and trial-trenching assessments on the site.
The development site, for which a hotel, a leisure development, a multi-storey public carpark, and apartment and retail buildings are proposed, is presently being used as a carpark.
Nine trial-trenches were cut. As so much earlier trenching work had taken place on the site, these were placed, mainly to augment earlier trenching results and took into account recommendations in earlier trial-trenching reports and tested areas not already tested. Study of features relating to the walls also decided the positioning of trenches.
It was found that there are archaeological layers and features in the Pudding Lane area of the site. In all three trenches excavated, archaeological features yielding medieval pottery and iron slag were found. There is, therefore, substantial evidence that more pits and stratified layers of archaeological significance are present throughout Area 1.
In Area 2, wall features (mortar bases), probably built on old ground level, and probably also relating to the inturn feature in the city wall, are present. These walls seem to be quite flimsy but are potentially of archaeological significance. Though there seems to be no clear archaeological stratigraphy and no medieval finds came to light in Area 2, there still seems to be a buried topsoil level.
In Area 3 a ditch containing 17th/18th-century pottery was found. This possibly relates to the city wall and throws some doubt on the notion that the city wall was in line with the existing garden wall and running in a straight line north–south across the site. Further excavation will take place in areas to be affected by the development.
30 Ramleh Park, Milltown, Dublin 6
