County: Tipperary Site name: Town Hall Plaza, New Street, Carrick-on-Suir
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: Unlicenced Monitoring
Author: Marion Sutton & Seán Shanahan, Shanarc Archaeology Ltd.
Site type: Urban, post-medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 640212m, N 621740m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.345781, -7.409819
Street frontage construction works at the Town Hall and New Street carpark, New Street, Carrick-on-Suir, were undertaken on behalf of Tipperary County Council as part of the refurbishment of the Town Hall and the provision of a civic plaza; these works were archaeologically monitored during October and November 2018.
Work was carried out in an area disturbed by urban infrastructure and sub-surface services; monitoring facilitated the identification of post-medieval remains associated with a British Military Barracks that formerly occupied the New Street car park. While little has been learned of the Military Barracks to date, it was present on New Street in the 18th century, and remained at this site into the 20th century. Remains associated with the Barracks generally lie 0.2m below the car park surface.
Little upstanding fabric associated with the Barracks remains, with the exception of sections of boundary wall. A remaining section of boundary wall, at the New Street frontage at the south side of the car park, was further partly demolished during the construction works. Monitoring showed that sub-surface remains of the street frontage boundary wall do survive, but in a heavily disturbed state, in consequence of multiple phases of service laying. Floor surfaces associated with former Barrack buildings were also recorded in the south-west corner of the New Street car park.
An archaeological deposit of potential interest - a black, charcoal-rich deposit overlying a cobble surface - was identified between 0.5m and 0.75m below the street level when excavating a water drainage trench parallel with New Street at the north end of the works area. The deposit and cobbled surface, partly disturbed to the west from the insertion of earlier services, remain in situ below the new water drainage pipe. Any future works involving excavations of >0.5m below the street level in this area of New Street and New Street carpark have the potential to re-expose or impact the surviving charcoal deposit and cobbled surface.
Excavations produced a very small number of post-medieval finds, consisting principally of 19th-20th-century pottery sherds and 18th- and 19th-century clay pipe fragments.
Unit 39A, Hebron Business Park, Hebron Road, Kilkenny
