2007:1855 - Railway Square, Waterford, Waterford

Test excavation was undertaken within an area of landscaping adjacent to a new development, in the immediate vicinity of a watchtower and the extant medieval city wall. The site is bounded on the west by Manor Street, to the north by the city wall and tower and to the south and east by a landscaped garden and playground area, associated with the current development at Railway Square. Three soakaways associated with the drainage of a garden path are planned 4m from the defensive tower and city wall. Three excavation trenches were opened within the footprint of each of the three proposed soakaways and drainage gullies.
The proposed development site is located within the zone of archaeological potential for WA009–005, the historic town wall of Waterford. Previous archaeological investigations on the site prior to the construction of the current mixed commercial and residential development focused on locating any surviving structural remains of the Mendicity Institute, a 19th-century house of refuge for the poor (Moloney et al. 2003; Moloney 2007).
An early post-medieval midden deposit was encountered over 1m below the current ground surface. This was initially interpreted as representing a build-up of domestic waste outside the city walls and this interpretation has been supported by further post-excavation analyses. It may also be the upper layer of a backfilled defensive ditch associated with the medieval city wall. However, the depth of this deposit was significantly greater than the maximum depth of the excavated test-trenches in the location of the proposed soakaways and gullies, and it is recommended that archaeological deposits be preserved in situ beneath the landscaped area of Railway Square.
References
Moloney, C. 2003 Archaeological Test Excavations at Railway Square, Waterford. Unpublished report for Headland Archaeology Ltd.
Moloney, C. 2007 Final Report On Archaeological Test Excavations at Railway Square, Waterford.