County: Kildare Site name: KILDARE: Bride Street/Bangup Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 22:29 Licence number: 99E0099
Author: Clare Mullins
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 672515m, N 712304m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.156295, -6.915764
An archaeological evaluation was carried out at a site at Bride Street/Bangup Lane, Kildare, on 4 and 5 March 1999. Testing was carried out in response to a condition of planning.
Three test-trenches were inserted, positioned to best represent the stratigraphy of the overall site. Excavations were commenced using a toothless bucket. However, this soon had to be abandoned in favour of a normal, toothed foundation bucket as the high density of stone within the general fills tended to counteract any positive effects of the ditching bucket.
The results of the test-trenches indicate the survival, to a depth of c. 0.7m, of what seemed to be medieval deposits towards the rear (south-west) of the site. These deposits consisted of layered arrangements of redeposited natural and silty clay mixed with stone and fragmentary slate. They produced oyster shell, animal bone and several sherds of medieval pottery. It was clear that these deposits extended for some distance northwards, but they seemed to be at least partially disturbed towards the extreme northern end of the site. The archaeological deposits were covered by up to 1m of stony rubble. These deposits were largely denuded towards the front (east) of the site, where the rubble generally came directly down upon the natural, but here some deposits, which seemed to occupy a cut into the natural, survived around the central area.
A number of wall foundations associated with the recently demolished structure were uncovered. Other wall foundations discovered were more difficult to explain. However, the general impression from the stratigraphy was that all walls, with the exception of the possible wall aligned east-west in the northern part of the site, post-dated the layer of rubble and therefore probably belong to the 18th or 19th centuries.
The absence of modern debris over the site was noteworthy, while there was also a scarcity of identifiably post-medieval finds. This is unusual on an urban site and clearly suggests an absence of modern disturbance. This absence of modern material also served to more firmly contextualise the medieval sherds as deriving from an in situ location within the stratigraphy.
Full archaeological excavation was recommended in mitigation of the archaeological potential of the site.
31 Millford, Athgarvan, Co. Kildare
