2007:822 - KILDARE: Claregate Street/Bangup Lane, Kildare

Test excavation at the site was required as a condition of a grant of planning to construct an extension to the rear of a late 19th-century building. Archaeological deposits were encountered in the test excavation. As a result, it was agreed with National Monuments, DOEHLG, that the groundworks for the new building would be monitored by archaeologists and limited excavations, if necessary, undertaken as part of the groundworks. This second phase of work was undertaken on 17 September 2007.

Kildare town owes its foundation to the establishment here of a monastery by Brigit in the 7th century. The focus of the monastic site is on the northern perimeter of the later Anglo-Norman town. The town is first referred to as a borough from 1216–72, while burgesses were noted in 1297. It was referred to as a city in 1599. Claregate Street was the main axis of the medieval town, where the market was located.

Two trenches were excavated using a mini-digger. Both trenches extended parallel across the open yard between the house and the stable block, which is to be the site of the extension. Both trenches measured c. 0.8m in width. At a distance of 4m from the boundary wall on the east of the yard, a ditch-like feature of archaeological significance cut the boulder clay. The western edge of the ditch was located in both Trenches 1 and 2. The ditch extended to a depth of 1.8m below present ground level and had a fairly straight edge through subsoil. It was filled with grey/black gritty silt, with no evident settlement lenses, brick or mortar. Butchered animal bones were recovered from the fill; however, no pottery was recovered. In Trench 1, the ditch was capped with redeposited boulder clay. A stone culvert overlay the ditch fill in Trench 2. The stone culvert apparently related to the wall of the outhouse that was built in this area, and overlay the ditch.

At the western edge of the ditch, which extended to a depth of 2m below present ground level in Trench 2, bright yellow/brown boulder clay was exposed. However, this was overlain by cobble-sized loose stones, associated with a modern drain, which extended westwards for c. 3m. At the western limit of the sump stones, at a depth of c. 0.5m below present ground level, archaeological deposits were uncovered. These consisted of brown silt and ash deposits. A sherd of French green-glazed medieval pottery and the sawn tip of an antler tine were recovered from the soils. The full extent and depth of these deposits is unknown; however, the amount of modern services in the central part of the yard is considerable.

The excavation of the five pads for the superstructure, less than 1m2, was monitored. No further finds of any significance were recovered.

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