County: Wexford Site name: WEXFORD: Talbot Hotel, King Street Lower/Trinity Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 37:32 Licence number: 02E1652
Author: Ellinor Larsson, Arch-Tech Ltd.
Site type: Quay
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 705249m, N 621460m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.334652, -6.455625
Testing was carried out before a proposed extension to the Talbot Hotel, Wexford, in October 2002. The site is on the seaward side of the walled medieval town, to the south of Paul’s Quay and at the junction of King Street Lower and Trinity Street; it is within the zone of archaeological potential of Wexford town. Historical sources and cartographic evidence, together with the results of several previous excavations in the vicinity, indicate that the site of the proposed development was part of the tidal zone of the bay before post-medieval/early modern land reclamation. The proposed development, measuring 19m by 6m, comprised an extension to the north-eastern end of the hotel, which had previously been the site of a petrol station.
Four of the proposed five test-trenches were mechanically excavated. The fifth was not excavated as it was the location of one of the petrol tanks associated with the station. The layers identified in the trenches consisted of dump fills, representing stages of land reclamation, with the lowest fill consisting of a dark grey clay, encountered under rubble, at 0.8m below the present surface level, which is likely to be post-medieval or early modern. One large section of a substantial wall was identified in Trenches A and B.
The trenches contained a small number of pottery sherds and glass of possible post-medieval/ early modern date, as well as fragments of animal bone. No further archaeological finds or features were identified in the test-trenches.
The wall in Trenches A and B was oriented north-north-west/south-south-east and was identified in the south-eastern corner of the proposed development. It was 2.5m wide and extended to more than 2.5m below present ground level. It was constructed of moderately sorted, roughly cut stones bonded by a lime mortar and had even faces on both sides. It is likely to be a sea wall and/or an element of land-reclamation efforts and, given its size, content and orientation, is of probable post-medieval or early modern date. This wall could not be confidently identified in the available cartographic or historical sources.
32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2
