2006:1035 - GRAIGUENAMANAGH: Quay Street, Kilkenny

Test-trenching to assess the impact of a proposed development at Quay Street, Graiguenamanagh, was carried out in August 2006. The proposed development site encompassed c. 2078m2 of land located on the south side of the Cistercian monastery of 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/around the Quay Street sites and an associated site accessed from Main Street (see No. 1034, Excavations 2006, E2842) 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 on Quay Street included the south-eastern part of what was once the medieval abbey and also includes land immediately south and south-east of and outside the abbey’s walled precinct, on land between the abbey and the River Barrow. Regularity in the plan of medieval Cistercian monasteries suggested that the proposed site might include part of the former monks’ cemetery and the locations of the former monastic infirmary, the abbot’s quarters and gardens associated with both these structures.

Eight test-trenches were excavated on the proposed development site. From the archaeology identified in Trenches 1–3 and 8, located in the western section of the site, it was clear that subsurface remains of Duiske Abbey survived in situ. At shallow levels, with upper surfaces 0.05–0.75m below present ground level, remains consisted of remnant foundations, heavily robbed of their stone, floors and/or yard surfaces, and mixed, unstratified ‘made ground’ that may relate to flood reclamation activity and to former gardens. Some of the foundations were on alignments that correspond to standing medieval remains and are likely to have formed part of the abbot’s quarters and the infirmary buildings believed to have occupied this area of the monastic grounds.

Within Trench 8 a human skeleton was unearthed and excavated, with the upper surface of the grave at 0.6m below present ground level. The individual was a female aged between 30 and 45 years. The burial was located away from the prescribed burial-ground and adjacent to structural remains that probably correspond to the abbot’s quarters and the infirmary buildings. No material evidence was recovered to secure a date, but it was considered that the burial probably pre-dated the use of the premises as a brewery from at least c. 1703.

No significant archaeology was identified in Trenches 6 or 7, located in the eastern part of the site. This concurs with an understanding of the adjacent, standing, north–south medieval wall as the eastern curtilage or boundary for the abbey precinct; outside of the precinct and away from the riverfront there was considerably less medieval activity, none of which has left archaeological remains. No archaeology was identified in Trench 4, located in the south-western part of the site to the rear of a line of terraced houses fronting on to Quay Street.

In Trench 5, located in the southern part of the site, subsurface remains of a former 18th- and 19th-century saltworks survive in situ, at shallow levels, with upper surfaces 0.3–1m below present ground level. This archaeology may be considered significant as evidence for post-medieval industry, and because of its potential relevance to the history of Graiguenamanagh. In addition, possible medieval archaeology—a flagstone surface and possible riverbank and riverfront deposits—was also identified at deeper levels in Trench 5, 1.15–1.45m below present ground level. While this archaeology appears to be just outside the abbey precinct, it is significant as evidence for the early history of the River Barrow, Duiske Abbey’s relationship with that important artery (including a possible quay or waterfront for the abbey) and the development of this part of Graiguenamanagh.

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