2016:432 - Dungarvan, Grattan Square, Waterford

Improvement works carried out in Dungarvan town centre in 2016 included new water mains under Grattan Square and a new paved surface. The square is outside the medieval town, but beside one of the medieval roads approaching it.

As the 19th-century surface of the square was buried under a considerable layer of limestone rubble much of the original surface survived the 2016 works. Where the surface was removed remains of post-medieval roadside buildings were exposed and investigated, and earlier roadside ditches were identified.  

We know little about the roadside buildings demolished to make room for the new square in the early 19th century. There was no suggestion of a long sequence of development and redevelopment, with perhaps only one generation of stone buildings set by the roadside in the 18th century. The interior of the buildings had suffered badly from disturbance during construction of the square; only the hard wallbases and a cobbled outdoor surface survived in reasonable condition.

There may have been earlier roadside buildings, associated with a shelly midden under the known buildings. No attempt was made to investigate Trenches 25 and 26 to subsoil, and earlier post-medieval building remains may lurk there yet.

A number of likely roadside ditches were recorded, in the square and at the mouth of Mary Street. Medieval roads might be very wide and unsurfaced through the unenclosed countryside, but approaching a town we might expect roadside ditches protecting the fields from animals on the road. Thin spreads of beach gravel, trampled into subsoil, provided the only road surface predating the known generation of buildings.

The stream and ditch exposed in the north-east corner of the square conveniently match a field boundary on the 1775 Devonshire Estate Map.

Stradbally