2001:1254 - WATERFORD: Lady Lane, Waterford

The site is on the north side of Lady Lane, immediately west of the line of the intramural city wall separating the Hiberno-Norse town from the walled Anglo-Norman suburb. At the earliest levels it seems to have been at the end of backyards for properties fronting east onto Bakehouse Lane. Excavation uncovered the remains of post fencing running on an east–west line, covered by a deposit of burnt occupation debris containing pottery dating from the early 12th century (Clare McCutcheon, pers. comm.).

In the early 12th century the backyard area became the site of a defensive bank and fosse constructed on a north–south line parallel to the earlier 12th-century defensive wall at Arundel Square and Bakehouse Lane (Hurley and Scully 1997, 148). Settlement outside this wall rapidly expanded and consolidated after its construction in the second quarter of the 12th century (ibid., 149–72). It seems as though this second bank and fosse may have been constructed by the mid-12th century, prior to the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, in response to a need for some type of defence for this suburban settlement. A drain was built through the bank, on an east–west line. This presumably served to carry water out of the town into the ditch.

From the late 12th to the early 13th century substantial layers of occupation debris were being deposited within the fosse. At the beginning of the 13th century a trench was cut through the deposits filling the fosse in an attempt to clear and re-expose the drain. At this stage, or shortly after, a gate-tower was built on the City Wall at Lady Lane in the south-east corner of the site. It is possible that the recut in the fosse and the building of the gate-tower came about as a result of the Anglo-Norman reworkings of this defensive line and their substitution of a defensive wall for the earlier bank.

During the late medieval and early post-medieval period the fosse gradually lost its defensive role. By the early 17th century sufficient material had been deposited in the fosse and by the tower to render it effectively filled, and the area of the site had become somewhat marginal land. Numerous later 17th-century references show that the walls and tower were still standing at this date. At some time in this period the defensive functions of the fosse and bank had ceased for a sufficient time to allow for the area to be landscaped and used as a pathway and probably a garden. Drains were constructed and part of the site was covered with a layer of redeposited boulder clay bordered by a stone kerb. West of the kerb the ground was cleared to form a path. Pottery dating from the early 17th century was recovered from all these levels. Later in the century these features seem to have gone out of use and more deposits of occupation debris accumulated across the site.

Above the occupation debris a deep uniform deposit of fractured grey limestone rubble and dry loose mortar covered the entire site. In particular there was one localised deposit above the gate-tower foundation, in what appeared to be the backfill of a robber trench, and it is speculated that this rubble resulted from the demolition, to foundation level, of the City Wall and Lady’s Gate Tower. The rubble layer contained pottery dating from the late 17th century. This coincides nicely with the fact that in 1698 permission was granted to demolish the gate-tower (Pender 1964, 345).

Further excavation will take place on this site in 2002.

References
Hurley, M. and Scully, O.M.B. 1997 Late Viking Age and medieval Waterford excavations 1986—1992. Waterford.
Pender, S. 1964 Council Books of the Corporation of Waterford 1662–1700. Dublin.

The Mile Post, Waterford