2018:754 - Kildare Back Yard Services – Campion Crescent, Lourdesville and Cleamore Terrace, Kildare, Kildare

Monitoring of water pipe laying in Campion Crescent, Lourdesville, and Cleamore Terrace housing estates within Kildare town identifying previously unrecorded ditches dating to the 7th to 8th century. Pipe trenches were typically 0.5m wide and 1-1.2m deep, although in places the pipes were laid by directional drilling so monitoring was only possible during the excavation of access pits for the drilling equipment.
Most of the trenches simply revealed either disturbed ground or sterile subsoil beneath the current road surface; however some animal bone and a glass bead, potentially modern, were recovered from monitoring of two access pits in Campion Crescent (ITM 673064 712697).
A previously unknown archaeological monument was identified in a pipe trench immediately south of the crossroads of the north to south aligned Chapel Lane with Priest’s Lane to the west and the entrance to part of the Lourdesville estate to the east. The monument was represented by two ditches approximately 7m apart, that may represent a pair of parallel ditches or an annular feature such as an enclosure with a diameter of approximately 7m that was intersected in two locations by the pipe trench.
Approximately 2.3m south of the centre of the junction (at ITM 672762 712658) was an east to west aligned ditch, found sealed beneath the road surface and make-up layers. The ditch was 1.7m wide at the top with steeply sloping sides. The base was not reached at the full depth of the trench (1.2m) and the ditch fills were seen in the base of the trench where the feature was 1.5m wide. Three fills were visible within the ditch, seen in both the opposing trench faces. The lowest visible fill was dark, greyish brown silty clay containing frequent charcoal inclusions and occasional fragments of animal bone from a medium-sized mammal (identified by Natasia Duhau). Approximately 7m south of this feature another ditch was noted in the pipe trench sections, also oriented east to west and visible in the two opposing trench faces. A similar profile was observed as well as three identical fills, suggesting that the two ditches were contemporary and related. A piece of animal bone from the northern ditch yielded a radiocarbon determination of cal. AD 686-799 (UBA-41076, 1246 BP±31, 2 sigma), placing the lower fill event in the late 7th to late 8th centuries AD.

Kildare town is thought to have developed around St Brigid’s 6th century monastery which probably stood in the graveyard near the current cathedral. It has been suggested that the graveyard boundary wall may correspond with the boundary of the innermost enclosure of the monastery and that the street layout of parts of Kildare town retains the pattern of outer enclosing features (Bradley et al. 1986). Priest’s Lane to the west of the find spot may be one of these examples of historic boundary preservation and the two ditches might represent an outer enclosing element around the early ecclesiastical complex, which would be aligned east to west in this location.

Reference:
Bradley, J , Halpin, A and King, H, 1986, The Urban Archaeological Survey of Co. Kildare, Office of Public Works, Dublin.

Ahish, Ballinruan, Crusheen, Co. Clare