2010:420 - Coláiste Pobail Ollscoil Osraí, Ormonde Road, Kilkenny, Kilkenny

Test excavations were undertaken in response to a planning condition of Kilkenny Borough Council associated with a new school development to the rear of the Ormonde College, a 19th-century model school and protected structure. The proposed development area crossed two medieval burgage plots and lay 100m from Talbot’s tower, the south-west angle-tower in the town wall of the Hightown of Kilkenny. Five test-trenches were excavated.
As would be expected in the garden of a burgage plot, deep (c. 1.5–2m) imported horticultural horizons (‘garden soils’) were present. Orchards tended to occupy the rear of the plots and, to accommodate the planting of fruit trees, deep deposits of rich loam were introduced. The earliest archaeological deposit recorded was a layer of medieval garden soil that abutted the northern boundary wall. An 18th-century garden wall was also encountered running east–west across the site. Finds were few in number but included Kilkenny-type medieval pottery and early modern sgraffito sherds. The foundations of the new buildings were redesigned to allow for the preservation in situ of the archaeological layers and the development proceeded with monitoring. Nothing further of archaeological interest was noted during monitoring.