2002:1995 - CALLAN: Fair Green Lane, Kilkenny

Introduction 
The site at Fair Green Lane involved a proposed housing development comprising the construction of nineteen dwellings and an access road. Lying in the southern extent of the zone of archaeological potential of Callan town, it comprised an open field (c. 7200m2) surrounded to the east, south and west by modern housing estates. An assessment and monitoring of engineering test-pits were carried out by Catherine McLaughlin in January and March 2001 (Excavations 2001, No. 679). No archaeological material was encountered, and groundworks for the scheme began on 28 March 2002. Monitoring was conducted by Ben Murtagh from 28 to 30 March and by Ruth Elliott from 2 to 19 April. Further testing was carried out by Ruth Elliott from 22 to 24 April.

Monitoring
On arrival, Ben Murtagh found that a works accessway had been opened onto Fair Green Lane without archaeological attendance at the site. This had been cut through a raised area that ran east-west along the northern boundary of the site and was bounded by a retaining wall on the road frontage (probably of 19th-century construction). The opening was 7.65m wide and extended 15m into the site, forming a sloping surface that had been covered with a layer of hardcore. The resultant sections revealed the remains of a possible rampart, running east-west along the line of the former town defences. It was constructed of redeposited boulder clay that sloped southward into the site and appeared to represent the exterior. Along the northern side it was truncated by the present roadway and the retaining boundary wall. On the east-facing section there appeared to be a shallow ditch underlying the slope of the earthwork.

To protect this feature until appropriate mitigation measures had been devised, a 10m-wide corridor was cordoned off from the development along the northern boundary of the site. Soil­stripping was carried out in the remaining area, .and no further archaeological features were uncovered. Topsoil, a mid-brown silty clay 0.3-0.55m deep, contained occasional fragments of red brick and sherds of late post-medieval and modern pottery. It directly overlay natural subsoil.

The protected corridor was divided into three areas, defined by the architectural layout plans for the site and considered in relation to the level of proposed impact on each. Area 1 (30m wide) was at the western extent of the corridor and would be subject to severe impact by the development. Testing was proposed here as a preliminary mitigation measure. Preservation in situ was possible and proposed within Area 2, which was central to the corridor and c. 25m wide. Area 3, at the eastern extent of the corridor, contained the existing accessway and was the location of a much larger proposed entrance, 60m wide. Full excavation was proposed for this area.

Testing 
Two test-trenches were opened at the eastern and western limits of Area 1, using a mechanical excavator fitted with a 1.5m-wide flat grading bucket. Modern landscaping, which had taken place within a 5m-wide stretch in the northern part of the area, had greatly reduced the ground level toward the road frontage, and no rampart material such as that revealed in the accessway was evident in either trench. However, the remains of two ditches, one truncating the other, were uncovered, both oriented east-west.

Trench 1, excavated to a maximum depth of 1.15m, only partially revealed the two ditches. However, Trench 2, to the east, was excavated to over 1.5m in places and uncovered their full surviving extents in Area 1. Ditch 1 was 2.5-4m south of the retaining wall. It was up to 0.76m wide, and its sides sloped steeply to a flat base at a maximum depth of 0.58m. It was cut into natural subsoil and filled by two very similar layers of brown/grey silt. Ditch 2 was much larger, cutting through the overspill of the earlier ditch silt to the south in Trench 1 but almost bisecting Ditch 1 in Trench 2. It was over 2m wide in places, descending steeply to an uneven, flat base, with a surviving maximum depth of 0.8m. The modern landscaping had significantly truncated the northern edges of the ditch in Trench 1. The lower levels of Ditch 2 seemed to have silted up naturally, but one of the upper layers was composed of redeposited natural and appeared, particularly in Trench 1, to have subsided into the ditch from the north, possibly representing collapsed or demolished rampart material.

Summary 
Monitoring and testing revealed two ditches and an overlying rampart running east-west along the southern line of the former defences of Callan town. The rampart appeared to have been situated to the north, with at least half of its extent lying along the line of Fair Green Lane. It is probable that much of it had collapsed in former times and been subject to demolition before the construction of the road.

Although no datable evidence was recovered during this phase of archaeological work, Ditch 1 may date to the 14th or 15th century, as significant murage charters were granted to the town in 1339 and 1403, authorising the construction and maintenance of defensive earthworks or a wall around the perimeter of the town. Ditch 2 represents later refortification of the town, possibly dating to the 1640s, before the Cromwellian attack. The ditches and rampart certainly follow the line of a defensive circuit illustrated on a map of 1681 by Thomas Stuish, which survives in a copy made by Richard Frizel in 1765 (Manning 2000, 22).

Reference 
Manning, C. 2000 The finding of the Civil Survey of Inistioge and Callan. Archaeology Ireland 14 (3), 18-23.