County: Wexford Site name: WEXFORD: Rowe Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 98E0350
Author: Joanna Wren, for Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Site type: Town
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 704702m, N 621865m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.338391, -6.463529
The site lies within St Iberius Parish, Wexford town, just outside the western line of the existing town wall. East of the site, on Main Street, is the possible site of an intra-mural gate, just north of St Iberius Church (Hore 1910–11, 284). Mary Street to the south was probably the site of 'Fryers Gate' mentioned in 1663 (ibid., 350). Outside this gate, south-west of the site, is the Franciscan Friary that was built on the site of a Templar's graveyard in 1230 (ibid., 82). The church was set on fire in 1532, and much of the present church was built in 1689, but the modern building includes parts of the medieval friary.
The proposed development was for offices for The People newspapers. Eight trenches were opened revealing a deposit of dump material and garden soil, 1.3–2.2m thick, dating from the 19th and 20th centuries, which seemed to cover most of the site. In all the trenches opened this material was directly above the natural subsoil. It is possible that much of the 19th-century material was deposited when Rowe Street church was built. The later material seems to have accumulated when the site was left open over time. Repeated levelling of mounds of dump material has taken place within the site over the last thirty years. One trench opened at the foot of the town wall showed that the wall continued below the modern ground surface for 1.3m, where it appeared to rest directly on the boulder clay. It was constructed of rough-coursed limestone and red sandstone boulders, mortar bonded.
Reference
Hore, P.H. (ed.) 1900–11 History of the town and county of Wexford, vol. IV.
The Mile Post, Waterford
