County: Waterford Site name: WATERFOD: Lifetime Day Care Centre, Lady Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 95E0098
Author: Redmond Tobin
Site type: Town defences
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 660775m, N 612358m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.259573, -7.109743
The site is on the south side of Lady Lane, in the kitchen garden of the former Convent of the Little Sisters of Charity. It is within the line of the medieval city walls of Waterford, between Lady Lane and Spring Garden Alley, and lies immediately to the west of St Martin’s Gate. The purpose of testing was to determine the morphology and alignment of the city wall at this point.
Two test-pits were excavated. The first was opened against the north face of the city wall. It revealed that walls abutting the city wall and extending onto this site are not contemporary with the city wall. The city wall, while breached at this point, does not form a return here and continues on its original alignment to the rear of No. 16 Lady Lane.
Testing also exposed the foundation line of the 19th-century Female Orphan School established by the Little Sisters of Charity.
Material excavated on this site contained fragments of medieval and post-medieval pottery, bottle glass, blue Bangor slate and clay pipe fragments. This material represents garden material associated with both the Convent and the Female Orphan School.
The development did not encroach on medieval stratigraphy, which lay 1.5m below foundation level for the proposed extension.
Editor’s note: The report on this site, which was excavated during 1995, has only recently resurfaced!
The Lodge, Cul na Coille, Glenealy, Co. Wicklow
