2018:902 - Mayfair Building, Abbey Quarter (off Horse Barracks Lane), Gardens Td, Kilkenny, Kilkenny

Kilkenny County Council are redeveloping the Mayfair Building as a new library building, as part of the Abbey Quarter Masterplan, a redevelopment of 8.25ha in the centre of Kilkenny City incorporating the former Diageo/Smithwick’s Brewery. The Mayfair Building site is archaeologically significant because it is located within Kilkenny City (RMP: KK019:026----) beside the city wall, and partly overlies the graveyard associated with St Francis’ Abbey. In April 2018, Jon Stirland, ACSU, directed archaeological test excavations (Consent C000798, E004822) beside the Mayfair Building (Stirland 2018). The test trench 10:1 identified the walls and cobble surface of the Horse Barracks – a cavalry barracks dating from 1700 to 1800 – and beneath this in-situ burials associated with the graveyard of St Francis’ Abbey.
This summary describes further archaeological works carried out in December 2018, under an amendment to the Ministerial Consent (C000789; E004822), and directed by Richard Clutterbuck, AMS. These works were designed to facilitate the preservation in situ of the archaeology identified by Stirland. An area of 51.55 sq. m was excavated, including the backfilled ACSU test trench (28 sq. m), measuring 9.2m by 6.3m in maximum extents, to the level of the cobble surface and masonry walls of the Horse Barracks Building (44.31m OD).
The archaeology in the area excavated can be characterised in four phases as follows:
Phase 1 corresponds with the medieval and early modern cemetery found during Stirland’s test excavation in 2018, and most likely part of the cemetery attached to St Francis’ Abbey. This cemetery will be preserved in situ and has not been excavated for this project.
Phase 2 consisted of the remains of the Horse Barracks building constructed c.1700. A large external wall of roughly coursed masonry running north-east/south-west, 0.6m wide, was exposed for a length of 5.8m within the excavation area. Stirland confirmed that the foundation of this wall is c.1.55m deep. This wall represents the southern exterior wall of the Horse Barracks, making the Horse Barracks building c.8.5m wide. A perpendicular interior wall abuts the external wall and is narrower (0.45m wide). It is exposed for a length of c.2.82m and was also found by Stirland to be 1.55m deep. This wall divides the interior of the Horse Barracks into rooms or chambers. The interior ground-floor surface consisted of mortar layers, and in one interior, room cobbles. The immediate exterior of the Horse Barracks building also had a mortar and cobble stone surface in a band c.2.8m wide, with a rectangular motif in the cobbles opposite the building’s threshold. These external cobbles were laid at a slight slope from the Horse Barracks’ wall, sloping to a narrow rainwater gully in the cobbles, 0.36m wide and c.0.5m deep. Beyond the exterior cobbles, a metalled surface appears to have been a yard for the Horse Barracks. This archaeology will be preserved in situ and has not been excavated for this project.
Phase 3 consisted of the demolition and removal of the Horse Barracks building and its replacement with made ground sometime after c.1900 (the last time the building walls were depicted on an Ordnance Survey map). The remains of the former Horse Barracks building were removed except that portion of the building fronting onto the Breagagh River, now part of the city wall national monument (AMS 2018). Following this demolition, a layer of dark friable cinder material and slag waste was deposited over the former Horse Barracks site.
Phase 4, the final phase, consisted of the construction of a concrete extension to the Mayfair Building following the purchase of the Mayfair Ballroom site by Diageo in c.1970.
AMS prepared an archaeological impact assessment in 2019 detailing these findings (AMS 2019).
Further archaeological monitoring of works on this site was carried out by Colm Flynn in 2019 (Excavations Bulletin 2019:392).

References:

AMS. 2018. Final Report on the Archaeological Assessment of Kilkenny City Wall: Mayfair Boundary Wall with the River Breagagh. Unpublished report for Kilkenny County Council.

AMS. 2019. Archaeological Impact Assessment of the Redevelopment of the Mayfair Building, Abbey Quarter, Kilkenny. Report prepared for Kilkenny County Council May 2019. Kilrush: AMS. Available at: https://consult.kilkenny.ie/en/system/files/materials/2690/Mayfair%20Library%20Archaeological%20Impact%20Assessment_0.pdf [Accessed April 27, 2021].

Stirland, J. 2018. Archaeological Test Trenching of the Abbey Creative Quarter, Co. Kilkenny: Urban Block 10 (Mayfair Building): Consent C798/ E4822. Unpublished report for Kilkenny County Council. ACSU.

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