During October-December 2007 archaeological excavation was carried out by Kilkenny Archaeology at the medieval town wall at Talbot’s Tower, Ormond Street/New Street, Kilkenny. Talbot’s tower guards the south-west angle of the city’s Hightown fortifications. The excavation was a research exercise which formed part of a programme of conservation measures for the walls that are being guided and developed by the Kilkenny City Walls Steering Committee and funded by the Irish Walled Towns Network Fund and Kilkenny Borough Council. The excavations occurred in tandem with an archaeological building study by Ben Murtagh.
Photomontage showing the main findings at Talbot’s tower
The archaeological excavation at Talbot’s tower provided important new evidence regarding the topography and development of the town wall at this location and clarified the sequence and chronology of the fortifications’ construction. The key discovery, however, was the confirmation of the existence on the site of the earliest Anglo-Norman earth-and-timber defences. Such a survival is quite uncommon and their archaeological excavation a rare event.
Talbot’s tower was during the medieval period called ‘Patrick’s Tower’ in reference to the church of this name which occupied the early monastic site of Donaghmore. This map shows the topography of the area c.1300 AD.
Fortuitously preserved beneath the earthen embankment were the remains of the pre Anglo-Norman ground level, the earliest activity encountered during the excavation. Before the bank was raised the sod had been stripped from this layer, leaving behind the underlying ‘B-horizon’. A grain of barley from this layer was radiocarbon dated to 760-890 cal. AD, the earliest evidence for agriculture in this part of Kilkenny. Presumably this was carried out as part of the ecclesiastical demesne of Donaghmore.
Excavations underway in the moat at Talbot’s tower
The primary defences were probably constructed c.1200 and comprised a ditch, the excavated material from which was piled in a structured manner on the town side to form a bank c.1.60m high x 4.50m wide. This was probably topped with a timber palisade and the corner where Talbot’s tower now stands defended with a wooden brattice.
In the latter half of the thirteenth century the replacement in stone of the earth-and-timber fortifications commenced. The base-batter and footings for a stone corner-tower were inserted into the embankment and the bastion raised. At the same time the inner edge of the town ditch was revetted in stone and the curtain-wall erected. Extensive sections of the town wall were thus defended. The town ditch at this time was 1.30m deep, flat-bottomed and probably c.5m wide – later activity had altered and possibly widened its outer edge, making reconstruction of its original width impossible. The town ditch of the southern defences may have been considerably wider – perhaps c.7m.
There appears to have been a slight time-lag between the completion of the tower and the curtain-wall as evidenced by the development of a sod-level which overlay the turret’s footings but onto which the curtain-wall was built. The recovery of Kilkenny-type pottery from this layer provides a terminus post quem of c.1250 for the wall’s construction. No direct dating evidence was obtained for the tower’s construction.
No medieval stratigraphy survived within the town ditch, as a consequence of their scouring presumably in an attempt to re-fortify the fosse. This probably occurred in the run up to the Williamite wars. Following this the town ditch was rapidly backfilled with the massive dumping of redeposited ‘topsoil’, probably sourced during the construction of the ‘New Street’ to the west. Ceramics and a 1683 coin from its primary fills suggest this occurred in the late 17th – early 18th century. By mid-century the ditch was completely filled-in and it is shown as such on Rocque’s 1758 map.
Extensive re-organisation of the area occurred in the early-mid 19th century with the construction of Ormonde Road and the National Model School. The area outside of Talbot’s tower became the rear of a formal garden for the ‘Rose Cottage’ on New Street and landscaping works for the Model School led to the lowering of the ground level and the modifications to the curtain-wall. Probably at the same time, large borrow-pits were dug into the backfilled town ditch to extract the facing stones of the ditch-revetment and to rob-out substantial sections of the curtain-wall on either side of the tower.
The Kilkenny City Walls steering group will use the results of the excavation to inform the presentation of the town wall and its environs to the general public. However funding has now been seriously cut for the project.