2006:2061 - MULLINGAR: Blackhall Street, Westmeath

The Dominican priory of Mullingar was founded in 1237 and prospered for the first century of its existence. Thereafter it declined until the Dissolution. As late as the 1820s, part of the tower still survived, but, by the time of the first OS map in 1837, all aboveground remains had disappeared without trace and the exact location was soon forgotten.

This site, in the carpark south of Blackhall Street, behind a recent office development, was previously investigated by Colum Hardy (Excavations 2005, No. 1579, CO08; No. 1580, 05E0199) in advance of a proposed development, and stone walls were found, along with Gothic window heads and fragments of medieval floor tiles. As a result, it was decided to excavate a more extensive area.

A rectangular area measuring 78m by 37m was opened up. All of this was excavated, apart from the line of an Eircom broadband cable, which was left as two baulks dividing the site into three main areas. The excavation commenced in mid-February and continued until the end of the year. It will continue in 2007.

Evidence of prehistoric settlement was limited to occasional lithics and a polished stone axehead, the latter found in an 18th-century context. Some pits and drains or channels were cut into the natural yellow clay, but these produced no artefacts. There appeared to have been a natural streambed running in a west-north-west/east-south-east direction across the site. This had already been filled in in the medieval period.

Extensive medieval remains were found, dated by pottery finds. No clearly identifiable part of a church or claustral buildings have been found so far, but traces of the monastic complex have been found in the form of a large number of fragments of floor tiles and some pieces of stained glass and window lead, in addition to at least 30 pieces of cut stone from windows and doors.

Substantial wall bases are present in the western part of the site (a), but only one or two courses survive. These form an L-shape, and there appears to be a second north–south wall under the Eircom baulk. A 2.5m length of lead pipe was associated with these, along with a number of stone drains running down to the south.

To the south-east of this is a group of structures which survive to a height of up to 1.8m above the bases of the walls (b–c). Their survival is probably due to later reuse and rebuilding. One of these is oriented west-north-west/east-south-east; the remainder, which are structurally later but joined to the first, follow the present-day north–south to east–west orientation. The former (b) consists partly of a narrow watercourse originating in a wedge-shaped area 2.4m long, ranging in width from 1.2m to 2.4m, paved with flagstones. The structure may have been a watermill and may derive its orientation from the stream mentioned above. The latter (c) consisted of two rooms along a substantial east–west wall.

This east–west wall (d) met a north–south wall (e), of which mostly only the footing was extant, to form an L shape. The north–south wall stops just short of a small square structure (f) in the north-eastern part of the site. This is in the area shown on the OS five-foot map as ‘Site of Castle’, although it covered a smaller area. It measured 3.65m by 5.5m and had a clay floor with a stone drain beneath. There may be an analogous structure at the southern end of the north–south wall (g). Between them were three human graves, oriented north-west/south-east, inserted after the structures had been demolished.

To the north of the east–west wall are a number of east–west ditches (h). North of these is a well (i) dug into the yellow natural. It is in the middle of an elongated cutting, running east–west, with steps going down either side. These steps appear originally to have been paved with stone.

In the south-western part of the site, a rectangular structure (j) was found that contained a large amount of copper slag. Waste lead was also present, especially around the rim of a small circular pit.

Two ovens (kn), presumably for bread, were found in the same area. These were circular stone structures, 0.96–1.3m in diameter. One had a stone base, and a smaller one had later been built inside. Nearby, in a circular pit (lo), a bronze tripod-skillet was found, lying on its side, but almost completely intact.

There were three further medieval features of note. One was a stone structure, of 1.16m2 (m), which resembled an interior pier of a building but appears to have been in isolation. The second was a line of plain green-glazed floor tiles set in plaster (n), in the south-eastern part of the site near the present road. It may have been the edge of a floor, but no trace of this survived. However, there was a tree bole at this point. The third feature was a ditch (o), 1.1m deep, 2.9m wide at the top. This ran for 45m across the site and in places a drain with stone sides and floor had been laid on the base. There were a number of fills, one of which yielded a considerable amount of 13th-century pottery.

In the post-medieval period, the possible mill was altered, with iron water pipes supplementing the stone drains, and the structures further east were partly rebuilt. Later still the mill area was filled in and used as a dump for kiln or furnace waste. Two post-medieval kilns were found further to the east, one built of stone (p). Further later features on site included a ditch with stone revetment (p) running east–west near the southern edge of the site, and some stone drains in the same area. An area measuring 15m by 14m in the north-eastern corner of the site had been paved with cobbling in the first half of the 18th century (q). Above this, and covering the remainder of the site, a thick layer of garden soil containing a large amount of recent ceramics and glass represented the 19th century and later (the area had been used as a dump within living memory).

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