County: Kilkenny Site name: WESTCOURT HOUSE, Westcourt Demense
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 26:2 Licence number: 00E0786
Author: Dave Pollock
Site type: House - 18th century
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 640855m, N 644744m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.552497, -7.397559
As part of an archaeological impact assessment, ten test-pits were cut around the site of Westcourt House, a late 18th-century mansion (demolished in the 20th century). Rough cobbling to the north and east of the house represents the approach road and turning area, and set cobbling to the west represents a yard behind the house. The rough cobbling was pressed into clay subsoil or a cultivation soil. The yard cobbling was set in construction waste or directly into subsoil. Towards the summit of the site (a slight rise) construction material for the house overlay a shallow, silty soil over a scorched surfacing of clay, slabs and mortar, remains of an earlier settlement.
A battered wall footing on one side of the yard, c. 1.5m wide at ground level and dropping into an adjacent ditch, may be part of a bawn enclosure around a medieval castle on site (there are no remains above ground and no clear record).
Knockrower Road, Stradbally, Co. Waterford
