2010:400 - Greyabbey, Kildare

Monitoring was carried out at Kildare village, Greyabbey, Co. Kildare, during the construction of a new carpark extension to the retail park, on the outskirts of Kildare town.
The site is located adjacent to the constraint area of Grey Abbey, a national monument (KE022–029(06), 022–030). The abbey or friary was initially constructed by the Franciscan order on the outskirts of Kildare town in the mid-13th century by Lord William de Vesci and was completed by Gerald Fitzmaurice; it was once held in great esteem, being the burial-ground for eight Earls of Kildare.
The new overflow car park is located 40m to the south and south-west of the surviving abbey church. The field between the church and new car park has been left in grass and forms a zone around and between the standing archaeological remains and new Retail Park development to the west and the new overflow car park to the south. The new car park has been built on a large open gravelled yard that existed at the site prior to 2004 when the retail park was built.
The monitoring involved the inspection of new storm-water drains excavated into the existing gravelled yard. The excavations were similar to test-trenches and indicate that substantial medieval archaeological deposits survive on-site under the car park surface. These deposits survive in the centre of the site over an area measuring roughly 40m x 40m and consist of organic deposits and pits, possibly associated with a range of domestic buildings to the south of the cloister and church. It is likely that these remains are the surviving elements of the refectory and domestic ranges. The archaeological deposits remain intact under the existing crushed stone surface that was retained during the construction of the new car park.