County: Kilkenny Site name: Neworchard
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 07E0718
Author: Nikolah Gilligan, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd, 27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 651792m, N 658223m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.672697, -7.234194
A test excavation was carried out on a development site in Neworchard, Co. Kilkenny, in August 2007. The development site lies 2km north-east of Kilkenny city, and was subdivided into three fields (Fields 1–3). Development plans included residential and commercial buildings, as well as an access road and roundabout.
A geophysical survey was carried out on the site in June 2007 (07R0053) and a number of subsurface anomalies were detected. It was proposed to excavate test-trenches through these anomalies as there was a likelihood that they represented subsurface archaeological remains.
Field 1 was not accessible at the time of testing and therefore test-trenches were only excavated in Fields 2 and 3. Testing was carried out on 30–31 July 2007 using a track machine with a 2m-wide toothless bucket. Three trenches were excavated through an anomaly in Field 2 and one trench was excavated through an anomaly in Field 3. These trenches varied in depth from 0.35m to 0.65m; they were found to have a similar stratigraphy which consisted of topsoil, deposited directly over natural subsoil. The anomalies detected during geophysics were found to be geological variations in the subsoil. Nothing of archaeological significance was found during this phase of testing.
A second phase of testing, concentrating solely on anomalies detected in Field 1, is to be carried out in 2008.
