2003:905 - CLONGOWES, Kildare

Excavation took place of a site at Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare, which is located c. 1.25 miles north of the village of Clane. The site was identified during monitoring of the removal of the courtyard surface and the demolition of a building, the Serpentine Gallery, carried out by John O’Connor (No. 904, Excavations 2003). This monitoring identified 23 archaeological features, including two wells, a drain, a series of walls and a linear ditch, within the courtyard area, which may be associated with the medieval castle thought to be at the core of the present Clongowes Castle. Further monitoring by John O’Connor revealed more archaeological features in an area between the western wall of the Serpentine Gallery and the school buildings. The excavation investigated these features in so far as it was possible while taking health and safety issues into account. Due to the proximity of some of the features to the remaining wall of the Serpentine Gallery and the shallow nature of the foundations for this structure, total investigation of all the features on the site was not possible.

The area available for excavation was limited, due to health and safety concerns. In particular the areas between the demolished and remaining walls of the Serpentine Gallery and the area external to the western wall of the gallery were deemed by the site engineer to be too dangerous to excavate, due to the condition of the standing gallery wall and the shallow nature of its foundations. Any excavation carried out in these areas would have resulted in the undermining of the foundations and possibly lead to the collapse of the wall. As a result, the archaeology in these areas was left in situ.

The evidence retrieved during the excavation revealed a clear sequence of events. In Area 1 the early ditch was initially truncated by a cut in which a wall was constructed. This wall was then truncated by the excavation of a second foundation trench, in which a stepped wall was built. Subsequent to this, layers of burnt material, which were probably the waste from a fireplace and included kitchen waste in the form of animal bone and broken china, then built up inside this wall. This was followed by the construction of the Serpentine Gallery, which necessitated the digging of deeper foundation trenches to support the gallery wall where it crossed the waterlogged fills of the earlier ditch. All of these features were finally truncated by the recent digging of a trench for the placement of an ESB cable.

In Area 2, the sections revealed a series of layers built up within the early ditch. It is common for ditches to be associated with a bank formed from the material produced in their excavation and the earliest of these fills, being a yellow/grey silty clay, may represent slippage from this bank into the ditch. The two main fills were both waterlogged and contained frequent preserved organic remains. This suggests the presence of standing water in the ditch as these layers were building up. The final series of deposits were similar and may represent the backfilling of the ditch with the material from the bank. No datable artefacts were recovered during the excavation.

During the course of the excavation, other works associated with the development at Clongowes Wood College were taking place, in particular those associated with drainage. Part of these drainage works involved the removal of the floor of a building called the Green Room. This building was located to the immediate east of the courtyard which contained the archaeological excavation. The floor was being removed to allow the drainage from the courtyard to connect to a manhole on the far side of the Green Room. The floor was removed using a mini mechanical excavator and in places by hand using a pneumatic drill. The floor was found to have been laid directly onto the natural subsoil. Only one subsoil-cut feature was identified inside the building, this being the continuation of the ditch noted during excavation. It occurred at the southern end of the building and the entire width of the ditch (3m) was exposed, running from one side of the room to the other. As in this part of the room there is to be no disturbance and the floor is to be reinstated to its original condition, the feature was simply recorded in plan.

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