County: Waterford Site name: Waterford, 15 Catherine Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: WA009-005029 Licence number: 16E0577
Author: Dave Pollock
Site type: Medieval urban, vicinity of abbey
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 660935m, N 612123m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.257438, -7.107446
Three small test trenches were cut by hand in late 2016 and early 2017 behind a 19th-century terraced house on Catherine Street, Waterford. One trench was cut in the open garden, the other two through the floors of outhouses, following demolition.
Construction level for the terraced house was represented by a layer of mortary debris in all trenches at c. 0.5m below recent ground level. This overlay a garden soil extending beyond the base of two trenches. The deeper Trench 1 reached the base of the soil at c. 0.9m below ground. Underlying clay (redeposited), fired clay and charcoal may be associated with occupation of the artillery fort or demolition of the abbey. This broadly matches the stratigraphy found in the garden of 17 Catherine Street (05E0149).
Groundworks were subsequently monitored. The replacement of a drain caused no disturbance outside the trench for the original drain, and the cut for a raft foundation did not penetrate the garden soils.
Stradbally
