County: Kilkenny Site name: The Tholsel, High Street, Kilkenny
Sites and Monuments Record No.: KK019-026061- Licence number: 18E0413
Author: Paul Stevens AMS
Site type: 17th-century Market House
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 650545m, N 655898m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.651919, -7.252992
Archaeological monitoring took place of engineering opening-up works for the proposed restructuring and refurbishment of the Tholsel, High Street, Kilkenny city, a Recorded Monument (KK019-026061-) in the ownership of Kilkenny County Council. The Tholsel (Townhall) is beside St Mary’s church (KK019-026115-) and graveyard (KK019-026156-) in St Mary’s Parish, and within the city centre.
Opening-up works consisted of 10 trial holes and investigations of the floor, wall and ceiling fabric of the building, and on the basement, ground, second and fourth floors.
All works were monitored, and all spoil was scanned with a metal detection device (under licence 22R0086). No archaeological objects, features, or deposits were identified during the archaeological monitoring. However, traces of significant modern and recent interventions were revealed in all investigated areas, notably that the present flag floor which was re-laid and re-pointed in the late twentieth century. Furthermore, significant architectural detail was also gleaned from the ground-floor trial pits. The limestone columns in the colonnade were built sometime after the central basement partition wall on which they sit, as the alignment of the columns does not match that underlying wall. Investigations on the ground floor also demonstrated that the curving wall of the southern annex and stairwell wall was built of red brick.
c/o 12 Parliament Street, Kilkenny
