2017:138 - Avalon Inn, Castlecomer, Kilkenny

A programme of excavation and further testing, in advance of permitted renovations and an extension to The Avalon Inn, Castlecomer County Kilkenny, was carried out in May 2017. A desk study of the development area indicated that the current Avalon Inn building was built around the year 1800, on the site of an earlier house and gardens, possibly destroyed during the 1798 uprising. The area was therefore considered to be an area of high archaeological potential. This was confirmed during a previous programme of test excavations, carried out by the author in 2016, which revealed a total of nine potential archaeological features across the entirety of the permitted development area. Features uncovered included evidence of a demolished house to the east of the current Avalon Inn building (Feature 9), some previously demolished outbuildings of uncertain date (Feature 3, 6, 8), a stone- and brick-lined culvert (Feature 1), cobbled yard surfaces (Feature 5 and Feature 7), and a large garden feature (Feature 2). No finds predating c.1700 were uncovered from the cleanback of the above features. The findings suggested that substantial remains of the foundations of a demolished house survived below ground to the south-east of the development area. It was deemed possible that these represent the remains of an earlier house that had been destroyed during the 1798 rebellion.

To the rear of the current Avalon Inn building, evidence was uncovered of demolished outbuildings, culverts, yard surfaces and a garden feature, which were most likely associated with the existing early 19th-century building. However it may also be possible that some of these features were associated with the earlier house at this site. These excavations suggested that the subsurface remains of the demolished house (Feature 9), that predated the current Avalon Inn building, were largely destroyed by a series of modern pipe trenches and concrete foundations. While the exact relationship between the structure and the current Avalon Inn building could not be ascertained, it is still likely that the surviving features represented the remains of the earlier house, possibly the one destroyed during the 1798 rebellion.

To the rear of the Avalon Inn building, further evidence was uncovered of demolished structures predating the most recent rear extension to the Avalon Inn. One of these walls (Feature 19) appeared to follow the line of a wall projecting from the north side of the early-19th-century building and are therefore likely to date from the same phase of construction or later. The possibility still exists however that some of these features were associated with the earlier house at this site.

To the north of the development area, test excavations revealed a series of intact garden horizons and probable garden features (Features 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16). These features consisted of several possible planting beds as well as some internal dividing walls. While a garden is shown at this location on the first edition OS map (1838), no walls are depicted on it or any subsequent editions. It is possible that these garden features therefore predate the 1838 map and relate to the Georgian/early Victorian house that formerly stood on the site.

Kilkenny Archaeology, 12 Parliament Street, Kilkenny