2010:424 - ‘The Closh’, Walkin’s Green, Walkin Street, Kilkenny, Kilkenny

Test excavations were conducted at the request of Kilkenny Borough Council which aimed to assess the archaeological potential of the site and the impact of its redevelopment as a public skate park. The site is a triangular green, 80m east–west x 60m (maximum), bounded by Walkin’s Street on the south and the Gaol Road on the north. The area was formerly located on the edge of the medieval ‘Fair Green’, 200m to the west of the walled town, and beside Walkin’s Lough, a lake that was drained and infilled in 1828. It is within the zone of archaeological protection for KK029–025007 (designed landscape) and adjacent to St Rock’s medieval graveyard (KK019–025001 and 019–025002) and a holy well (KK019–025003).
Nine test-trenches were excavated by machine within the proposed development area, representing 8% of the total site. Each trench was bottomed on to the ‘natural’ glacial substratum. No materials of archaeological significance were discovered in any of the trenches and all of the indications are that the area was open ground, the historically documented Fair Green, until it was raised by around 2m in height as part of the engineering works associated with the drainage of Walkin’s Lough. The infilling was achieved through the dumping of building rubble associated with Victorian artifacts. The origin of the rubble is not known for certain but it is possible it derived from the demolition of the brick terraced housing that stood within and in front of the St Rock’s graveyard until c. 1810. The complete absence of human skeletal remains in any of the test-trenches indicated that the cemetery did not extend into the proposed development area, although there is the possibility that outlying human remains, for example unbaptised children, were buried in the green. The absence of lacustrine sediments in the test-trenches indicated that Walkin’s Lough did not extend into the proposed development area and this correlated with Rocque’s 1758 map, which depicted the site as part of ‘Walkin’s Green’.