2006:1034 - GRAIGUENAMANAGH: Main Street, Kilkenny

Test-trenching to assess the impact of a proposed development off Main Street, Graiguenamanagh, was carried out in August 2006. The proposed development site measures c. 34m (north–south) by 24m and is positioned on the south side of the Cistercian monastery, Duiske Abbey. The abbey, a registered national monument, is in the centre of the town of Graiguenamanagh and provided the focus for the latter’s development as the town gradually evolved around the abbey. The abbey gave the town its name, which translates as ‘the grange of the monks’. The name of the abbey itself, which means ‘of the water or rivers’, refers to the location of the abbey near the Duiske tributary, at the confluence of the Blackwater River and the Barrow River.

Archaeological surveys of standing building fabric on and around the Main Street site and an associated site accessed from Quay Street (see No. 1035, Excavations 2006, E2843) were also conducted by Bill Frazer (Main Street, September 2005) and Bill Frazer and Jackie Jordan (Quay Street, 2002, and September–October 2005), in response to two planning requests for further information. In the case of the Main Street site, rectified photography was used where possible (based on a survey by Andrea Acinelli). Due to the robbing-out of almost all dressed stone—particularly around opes— the exercise was primarily one of wall fabric phasing, rather than dating on the basis of architectural detail. Nevertheless, the results indicate several medieval building phases (and imply that the frater, or refectory, was built prior to other parts of the south claustral range) and also suggest that the removal of dressed stone was quite systematic and probably rapidly followed the dissolution of Duiske Abbey in 1536. Many of the standing walls relate to post-medieval industrial use of the premises.

The proposed development site off Main Street encroaches on to what was once the central and south-eastern part of the south claustral range of Duiske Abbey. Today the site is occupied by a derelict, but roofed, east–west building extending along the southern edge of the former cloister and made up of a composite of medieval and later stone wall fabric. Part of the south wall of the present building is also medieval in date. South of this building, the site includes what is today a domestic back garden. The remnants of two medieval walls flank the proposed development site on the east and west and several other, later, walls, in various states of disrepair, also survive in the garden area.

Five test-trenches were excavated on the proposed development site. From the archaeology identified in Trenches 2 and 3, it was clear that subsurface remains of Duiske Abbey, in particular the refectory building and a drain or sewer structure, survive in situ within the area and that some medieval elements were utilised as part of an 18th/19th-century brewery building on the site.

A north–south-aligned eastern medieval refectory wall was shown to continue beneath the western brewery wall and was evident at sod level. The remains of an east–west-aligned wall foundation at the southern end of the refectory were also exposed in Trench 3 at 0.7m below the present ground level.

The medieval water channel/sewer was exposed in Trench 2 at 0.54m below present ground level. Running on an east–west alignment across the site, the substantial structure was constructed from large subrectangular granite stones stood upright and bonded to form a sealed drain, with smaller granite and sandstone stones set in dark-yellow/grey gravelly mortar. There was some evidence of collapse, but the structure appeared largely intact, though vulnerable to further collapse. The base of the channel was heavily silted but measured at least 1.6m in depth. The structure measured 1.85–2m in width. The roof was slightly arched and constructed from bonded granite and sandstone. The water channel or sewer is certainly medieval in date, extending under the refectory building, and may have been built during the earlier evolution of the abbey (13th/14th century).

The walls of an 18th/19th-century brewery building were largely visible aboveground, with the west wall built on the same alignment as the medieval eastern refectory wall that was revealed at foundation level in Trench 2. The foundation remains of an associated north–south-aligned wall were revealed in Trench 3, 0.5m below the present ground level. Trench 1 was opened within the medieval refectory building, but no medieval deposits were exposed. The base of an east–west-aligned post-medieval wall was exposed c. 0.35m below present ground level. Deposits representing the demolition or collapse of the upper floor of the brewery were exposed in Trenches 2, 3 and 5.

Within Trench 4, in the south-eastern corner of the site, a significant depth of imported made ground was exposed over natural soil that sloped sharply towards the east. This appears to correspond with reclamation evidence found during trenching at the adjacent Quay Street site.

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