County: Kilkenny Site name: KILKENNY: 39 Parliament Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 19:26 Licence number: 00E0128
Author: Paul Stevens, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 650489m, N 656243m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.655029, -7.253757
Test-trenching was carried out in April 2000 for a proposed development at Nos 38 and 39 Parliament Street, Kilkenny. The site is in the centre of Kilkenny City, opposite Rothe House, within the area of archaeological potential and is listed as a Tudor building in the Urban Archaeology Survey. The proposed development is to the rear of the property within the alleyway backing onto Horse Barrack Lane and consists of a three-storey annexe, replacing a prefabricated gallery toilet block on the second storey. The annexe measures 4.95m by 2.5m. Renovation for office space of the third-floor back room of No. 38 Parliament Street is also planned. This room is part of the original Tudor building and has original corbels, hood-moulding, windows and a fireplace surviving intact.
Two linear test-trenches were opened by hand to the rear of No. 39 Parliament Street. Trench 1 was 4.95m long by 1m and 1m deep. Trench 2 was at right angles to this and was 2.5m long by 1m and 0.5m in maximum depth. Excavation revealed a uniform layer of crushed slate across the width of the alleyway (indicating the original build level of the Tudor buildings), overlaying natural, orange sands and gravel. This was sealed by a deposit of mortar-rich silt, yielding late medieval pottery up against the wall, with a buff sand yielding medieval pottery to the south-east. The former was sealed by a truncated cobbled and repaired surface pre-dating the mortar line (and therefore the original ground surface) for the Tudor wall of No. 38. These medieval layers were truncated by a small limestone and brick lean-to structure of 19th-century date, with a preserved flag floor, which itself was truncated by a number of water-pipe trenches.
Where not truncated, this flag floor was left in situ, as it largely preserves the cobbling, and it was recommended that the development maintain the floor. A limited archaeological excavation for the proposed foundation trench was recommended to Dúchas The Heritage Service, and a full building survey is to be undertaken, with full preservation of all original features planned.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
