2008:711 - Friary Street/Pennyfeather Lane, Kilkenny, Kilkenny

Monitoring of the construction of a kitchen extension, a lift shaft and a 5m2 car-parking space was undertaken in the grounds of a late 19th-century Capuchin friary located between Pennyfeather Lane and Friary Street, Kilkenny. The friary was constructed in 1897 on the former site of a late 17th-century almshouse and is within the Hightown area of Kilkenny city. The construction of the kitchen extension and the car-parking space impacted on a garden area to the east of the friary building. The ground surface in the garden was 1.4m above the modern street level along Pennyfeather Lane immediately to the south. The stratigraphy consisted of a 0.8m deep layer of garden soil that overlay a 0.5m deep rubble layer containing brick and 19th-century pottery. The rubble sealed a 0.4m deep silty clay layer that appeared to be the buried topsoil layer. The natural subsoil was encountered at the base of this layer and excavations halted at this depth.
The lift shaft was constructed inside the friary building and required the manual excavation of a trench measuring 3m2 by 1.5m deep. The uppermost layer consisted of a 0.8m deep deposit of loose rubble containing modern inclusions. This overlay a 0.3m deep mortar-rich layer that contained frequent brick inclusions and sealed a cobbled surface at 1.1m below modern ground level. The cobbled surface overlay a yellow/brown silty clay deposit, with inclusions of brick and 19th-century pottery, and this was still present at the maximum depth of excavation at 1.5m below existing floor level. The stratigraphy at this site indicated that the ground levels had been raised with introduced material during the construction of the friary in the late 19th century and no archaeological features or finds were revealed.