2002:1027 - KILKENNY: 4 Rose Inn Street, Kilkenny

The development site is on the western side of the River Nore at No. 4 Rose Inn Street. The street is in the heart of Anglo-Norman Kilkenny, in what was the walled medieval city. Rose Inn Street functioned as the southern end of High Town, the English borough of Kilkenny. Before the Normans came, there was only one bridge spanning the River Nore, which was further upstream, toward Irishtown. With the building of the Augustinian priory of St John the Evangelist on the east bank of the Nore in 1200, a new bridge was constructed, which led to development along Rose Inn Street (De Loughry 1966, 9). Rose Inn Street abuts the southern wall of Kilkenny Castle, which formed the southern boundary of the new Anglo-Norman settlement.

The development site is a three-storey structure that has been dated to the mid-19th century. The building was included in the ‘Kilkenny architectural heritage inventory study, 1997’ carried out by Dúchas and was assigned a local rating of importance. It comprises a terraced, three-bay, three-storey, rendered house with a very fine, late 19th-century shopfront. The rear elevation consists of a cement-rendered, three-bay, three-storey house with a three-storey return and a modern single-storey extension with a single-span pitch roof. This modern extension was demolished to allow for the current development, and it was at this time that a well was discovered, during the removal of concrete flooring by the contractor in a test area in early April 2002.

The rear of the plot is bounded by the retaining wall of the castle. A later concrete-brick shed wall has blocked much of the lower 3m of the wall, but the upper wall can still be seen. It consists of uncoursed, large, cut-limestone blocks, with a later addition supported by segmented red-brick arches.

Testing was undertaken on 22 and 23 April 2002. A T-shaped trench was excavated, with the crossbar of the T running roughly perpendicular to the existing boundary walls and the stem roughly parallel. Both parts of the trench were 4m long and 1m wide. The well lay to the immediate west of the trench. Its superstructure was unaffected by the test-trenches, although deposits relating to the sealing of the well mouth were encountered (see below). It was necessary to excavate to a depth of 45.83m OD, the depth to which the foundations would penetrate.

Several layers of debris formed the stratigraphy. The lowest lay on the natural subsoil and contained red brick, slate, and late post-medieval blackware and china. There is no evidence of deposits pre-dating the late 19th century in the development area, with the important exception of the well.

In the south-western part of the test-trench the eastern edge of several contexts relating to the well were encountered. These all apparently related to the sealing up of the well and clearly not to its construction. The earliest of these was a possible cut through a layer of late post-medieval debris. This was filled by a loose deposit of large pieces of undressed limestone. This in turn provided a base on which the timbers used to cover the well mouth were placed. These timbers were sealed and cemented with a highly plastic, yellow clay. This sealing of the well may be coeval with the insertion of a lead pipe that was visible in the well, running under the ground surface toward the front of the plot. This pipe may have originally been connected to a pump, and the well may have been sealed to prevent surface contamination, since it was no longer necessary to have direct access through the well mouth. The sealing of the well was clearly no earlier than the 19th century.

Removal of topsoil from the construction area was monitored on 8 and 9 May 2002 without any archaeology being encountered.

The construction plan required that the well, which is built of drystone masonry, be reduced by c. 0.5m. This reduction and removal were also carried out on 8 and 9 May 2002. The part of the well to be removed was recorded. The well was skilfully built, with roughly dressed limestone blocks laid in regular courses. No mortar, which might have been used to date the building of the well, was recovered, construction being entirely drystone. The well was then pumped dry in an attempt to recover datable waterlogged material. A layer of limestone rubble was encountered at 2.65m below the original top of the well. This layer was judged by probing to have been at least 1.4m thick, and the overall depth of the well could not be established. No datable material was recovered. The well mouth was covered over and sealed below the new concrete floor.

Reference
De Loughry, R. 1966 Rose Inn Street. Old Kilkenny Review 18, 9–16.

3 Canal Place, Tralee, Co. Kerry