2001:1252 - WATERFORD: Grady’s Yard, John Street, Waterford

Following the purchase of Grady’s Yard as a development site from Waterford Corporation, a number of archaeological assessments were undertaken. A general assessment of the site was followed by test excavations to locate various features of the late medieval defences. Standing buildings around the site were then assessed, and finally excavations were undertaken to assess the impact of a particular proposed building design. Substantial investigations had been carried out on the site by Ben Murtagh in the 1980s, establishing a sequence and function for the walls and other structures, and testing on a smaller scale had been undertaken in 1995 by Orla Scully (95E0207). The recent excavations generally reinforced Ben Murtagh’s findings, but threw some new light on the sequence and function of the city defences.

The known City Wall and Watergate Bastion are now thought to post-date a narrow enclosure wall which skirted a medieval watermill on the site of the Bastion. The narrow wall appears to have stopped at the water’s edge, 20m from the City Gate and John’s Bridge, but a length of narrow wall was inserted in the gap between mill and gate sometime before the defences in this area were overhauled.

The overhaul involved rebuilding the City Wall on a wider base, presumably higher, and enclosing the site of the watermill behind the new masonry (as the Bastion). A second wall was built from the Bastion to John’s Gate, doubling the City Wall for 20m. The wall beside the late medieval John’s Bridge was built or rebuilt after this, probably with the bridge. (It appears likely that an earlier bridge was in use during the construction of the defences at John’s Gate, and remained in use in front of the gate until the present bridge was completed beside it—hence the dogleg.)

Knockrower Road, Stradbally, Co. Waterford