1998:082 - JAMES'S FORT, Cork

James's Fort, Kinsale, Co. Cork, is the site of a 17th-century, star-shaped fort with a central inner fortification. Part of this inner building was excavated over eight weeks from June to August 1998 at the request of Dúchas The Heritage Service.

The excavation was undertaken in advance of restoration/heightening of the outer revetment wall and restoration of the gateway to the inner fortification. There were four areas of excavation: Area 1, the south bastion; Area 2, the entrance; Area 3, the moat; and Area 4, the north bastion.

Area 1: the south bastion
The excavated areas included the entire inner area of the bastion and the area of the moat immediately to the south of the bastion. The excavation revealed that the inner work was made up of a rampart of sterile material, enclosed on three sides by the outer facing wall of the bastion and on the fourth by a modern stone wall. The rampart sloped up steeply from the northern edge of the cutting to the crest. A square stone setting was built on top of the crest of the bastion, and this may have been the base for a flagpole. A low stone wall extended across the edge of the crest. A 0.5m-thick layer of charcoal-enriched silt was uncovered on top of the bastion and covering the flagpole base. It contained post-medieval pottery, clay pipes, lead musket shot and animal bones. It did not extend to the north side of the dividing wall, but there was evidence of burning on the rampart slope, which had been covered by a layer of building collapse. This contained post-medieval pottery, clay pipes, iron nails, lead musket shot, glass and slate roof tiles.

All of the features in the area were covered by a 0.2–0.4m-thick layer of dark brown silt containing large amounts of fragmented roof slate, small fragments of mortar and small stones, which produced finds of animal bones, post-medieval pottery, lead musket balls and a 17th-century token.

The southern section of the bastion wall had collapsed outward into the moat. This collapse was removed, and the excavation was then halted.

Area 2: the entrance
An area c. 9m x 8m was opened in front of the entrance to the fort and included the area immediately inside the entrance. This trench linked with the cutting in the south bastion. The topsoil was removed from the moat outside the west wall, but the moat fills were left in situ.

The features uncovered included a causeway running across the moat to the bastion gateway and a flagstone surface bounded by a low, stepped stone wall to the west of the moat. The function of the flagstone surface was unclear. The presence of the boundary feature makes it unlikely that the surface was used to provide a level approach to the entrance.

Area 3: the moat
Three areas of the moat were investigated. A section of moat was cleared on either side of the entrance causeway and along the length of the west wall between the entrance and the south bastion. Only topsoil was removed from this area, which linked with the clearance of the moat around the south bastion wall, where the topsoil was also removed, and the rubble from the collapsed section of the outer facing wall of the bastion was removed from the moat.

The main area of excavation was along the outside of the wall between the south and east bastions, where three small trenches, Cuttings 1A, 2 and 3, were opened across the moat.

Excavation of the trenches revealed that the moat cut was 3.6m wide and 1.2–1.4m deep. The cut was wider and deeper close to the south-west bastion. In Cuttings 1A and 2 the moat cut was steep sided with a fairly flat base, apart from a small gully, 0.36m wide and 0.1–0.2m deep, which had been cut into the base in these areas. In Cutting 3, however, the cut sloped gently down to a rounded base and there was no evidence of a gully. There was a slight berm, 0.2m wide, on the inner edge of the moat between the moat and the walls of the fort.

The basic fill of the moat in all three trenches was a 0.16–0.2m-thick layer of building collapse under a mortar-rich layer, 0.24–0.6m thick. The finds from these layers were post-medieval pottery, clay pipes, lead musket shot, bottle glass and animal bone. A 0.1–0.18m-thick layer of mid-brown silt with frequent inclusions of slate fragments and small mortar fragments covered the mortar layer. Finds from this included post-medieval pottery and clay pipes.

The stratigraphy in Cutting 1A was a little more complex, with a series of thin lenses of silt and charcoal deposits under the building collapse layer. These may have related to the burning represented within the bastion by the charcoal-enriched silt on top of the south bastion, although the lenses F18 and F31 also contained frequent pieces of coal, something not found in the silt.

Area 4: the north bastion
Excavation here was limited to the removal of topsoil over the north and east walls to expose the level of the partially collapsed wall underneath. A roughly flagged surface was uncovered under the topsoil in the interior of the bastion.