2000:0537 - KILKENNY: 23 James's Street, Kilkenny

No. 23 James’s Street is located at the corner of James’s Street and Tilbury Place and lies within the area of archaeological potential for Kilkenny City, adjacent to the line of the medieval city wall. Archaeological investigations focused on the interior ground floor of the house (Area 1) between 25 September and 4 October 2000 and on the yard to the rear (Area 2) between 18 December 2000 and 2 January 2001. The site was already undergoing renovation when the discovery of human remains under the floor of the house halted construction. The proposed development entailed the refurbishment of the dwelling and construction of an extension to the rear.

Area 1: ground-floor interior
Excavation of the interior of the mid-18th-century dwelling revealed an earlier truncated garden soil sealing a substantial number of features, containing medieval and post-medieval pottery, cutting natural boulder clay. Archaeological features were spread across the interior and included an inhumation burial, a crude iron-working furnace and flue, a stone-lined well and associated cobbled pathway, several rubbish pits, a linear gully and isolated post-holes.

The furnace pit, which was partially sealed by the gable wall of the house, was oval in plan, measuring 3m in diameter and 0.55m in depth, with an adjoining linear flue 1.06m+ long, 0.7m wide and 0.45m deep. The furnace cut an earlier, medieval rubbish pit and was lined with boulders and filled with intermittent layers of burnt soil and silty clay. The entire feature was backfilled with clay and soot, rich in iron slag, which produced a single musket ball.

The well measured 1.06m in diameter and was excavated to a depth of 0.65m. It was lined with mortared cobbles and contained four upper fills with medieval pottery inclusions. An apparently associated cobbled surface extended east from the well, parallel to the street, into the baulk and neighbouring property.

The isolated burial, although substantially truncated by construction, was an extended child inhumation, orientated west–east within a shallow oval grave-cut, 0.92m long, 0.46m wide and 0.18m deep. The burial was not complete and appeared to have been re-interred in antiquity. The grave was backfilled with hard, redeposited natural that contained a tiny fragment of brick.

Area 2: yard
Partial archaeological excavation of the rear yard down to the depth of construction revealed modern garden soils sealing the remains of early modern outhouses, drains and an original cobbled surface to the yard. This surface partially sealed several archaeological features, including a cobblestone-lined square pit with post-medieval artefacts, a partially exposed pit with medieval pottery (also seen in Area 1) and a third, undated circular pit.

Conclusions
Excavation of this site produced the medieval features consistent with domestic occupation in burgage plots fronting High Street. No houses were recorded along the northern side of James’s Street in the 1654–5 Civil Survey, and this was confirmed by excavation. The medieval assemblage suggests occupation during the 13th and 14th centuries, following the 1207–31 expansion of High Town beyond James’s Street to the south bank of the River Breagagh (Bradley 2000, 2). A second phase of activity was also noted in the post-medieval period. Pit features and several post-holes produced an assemblage dating to the mid-17th century, and this may also have been the date for the crude iron-working feature. This furnace, which partially extended into Tilbury Place (formerly James’s Sconce) and James’s Street, would not have been associated with occupation in High Street but may well have been a hastily built smelting furnace for use in the Cromwellian siege of Kilkenny. The discovery of a musket ball within this feature further enhances this interpretation, but is by no means conclusive. As a result of the archaeological discoveries the development was redesigned to accommodate the preservation of most of the archaeological features in situ.

Reference
Bradley, J. 2000 Kilkenny. Irish Historic Towns Atlas No. 10. Dublin.

2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin