2005:1434 - HOOP’S-LOT, GOLDEN, Tipperary

Monitoring and excavations for the entrance road to the proposed wastewater treatment plant at Hoop’s Lot, Golden, took place on behalf of Tipperary SR County Council in advance of the main excavation in the area of the proposed tanks and pumps. The road works involved demolition of part of the 19th-century (former) schoolhouse building on top of the hill and excavation of a cutting into the hillside from the schoolhouse to the lower ground by the river. The site is located on the edge of the village of Golden, on the east side of the River Suir and to the east of the bridge and castle (a late 15th/16th-century tower-house). The first-edition OS map (1840–1) records a cluster of buildings on the hillside in the area of the proposed entrance road and an orchard and gardens on the lower ground by the river.
Work on the new entrance road to the wastewater treatment plant began on 25 May 2005. The derelict schoolhouse was largely demolished ahead of the excavations (but was surveyed and recorded, in consultation with the National Monuments Service, ahead of demolition). The foundations and floor of the schoolhouse outside the line of the road remain in situ.
Downhill, to the south-west of the schoolhouse, removal of between 1m and 1.5m of dumped material uncovered late 18th/19th-century buildings (wall foundations and surfaces), as expected from the first-edition OS map and Griffith’s Valuation map.
Under the schoolhouse building and north of it, the remains of medieval structural features were uncovered: post-holes, patches of surfacing, a drain and some midden material, associated with late 13th/early 14th-century pottery. Although too little survived to offer an interpretation for these features, they do provide evidence of occupation on the hillside in the 13th/14th century and suggest that Golden was a much bigger settlement at that time than previously believed.
On the lower ground, the new road was constructed on the present sod.