Excavation - miscellaneous

The National Monuments Service's description

Stone-lined cess-pit uncovered in archaeological test-excavations (06E0306) by Cóilín Ó Drisceoil in a former walled garden known as the 'Deanery Orchard', now a park and carpark, 40m SE of St Canice's Cathedral (KK019-026029-) (Gittins 2004, 272-3; Ó Drisceoil 2006, unpublished; 2009, 273-5). The Deanery Orchard is depicted, as a large open area on John Rocque’s 1758 map of Kilkenny, which in the 19th century was divided into three enclosures by stone fences. Before it was the orchard for the Deanery (KK019-026033-) on the opposite (W) side of Coach Road (built 1690), it formed part of the plot of the manse house (KK019-026106-) for the Precentor of the cathedral chapter in the Cathedral Close. In the early medieval period it occupied the S side of the precinct of the ecclesiastical settlement of Cill Chainnigh.
The round tower (KK019-026175-) is the only remaining upstanding building from this period of the site's history but a souterrain (KK019-026227-), part of the bank and fosse of the ecclesiastical enclosure (KK019-026231-) and pits (KK019-026232-) containing 10th-12th century bone and antler working waste have also been found on the Deanery Orchard site (Ó Drisceoil 2018, 118). Human burials that underlay the round tower (KK019-026175-) have been radiocarbon dated to the 10th, and 11th/mid-12th centuries and burials (KK019-026234-) excavated (09E0457) to the E of the 13th-century chancel of the cathedral on Church Lane have been dated by radiocarbon to the mid-7th – mid-10th century AD (ibid.).
The cess pit comprised a drystone bowl (Diam. 1.52m; H 0.8m), at the base of which was a layer (T 0.1m) of mineralised cess, underlying dumped clays and gravels, including waste from bone and antler working and a Class 2 watch-winder stick pin (AD c. 975-1100). Analysis of the cess deposit yielded a broad range of archaeobotanical material: avellana (hazelnuts), Prunus spinosa (sloe), Rubus fruticosus (blackberries), species of the Brassicaceae/Chenopodiaceae families (cabbage/goosefoot) and stalks and stems of the Poaceae family (grass) (cultivated/wild oat). Fly puparia were also noted and were identified by Eileen Reilly as Thoracochaeta zosterae (seaweed fly) with one belonging to the Musca species (common house fly). These are typically associated with urine-soaked rotting plant matter and human faeces. The “indicator species” of diagnostic fruits-seeds, fly puparia and the morphology of the pit suggests that it was a cess-pit. A cereal grain from the cess deposit was radiocarbon dated to AD 690-890. The cess pit had been cut into backfill of the fosse of the innermost ecclesiastical enclosure (KK019-026231-) for the church settlement and was sealed beneath a 16th/17th-century-yard surface associated with the Precentor's manse. The feature was preserved in situ.

See attached photograph of stone-lined cess-pit.

Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil

Date of upload: 5 November 2020

References

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2018 From Gaelic church settlements to Anglo-Norman towns: problems and possibilities. In H.B. Clarke and Sarah Gearty (ed.), More maps and texts: sources and the Irish Historic Towns Atlas, 115-34. Dublin. Royal Irish Academy.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2009 The Deanery Orchard, St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 2006: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, No. 1062, 273-5. Bray. Wordwell.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2006 Archaeological Assessment: Proposed Carpark Development at The Deanery Orchard, St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny City 06E0306, (Kilkenny Archaeology, unpublished report).

Gittens, M. 2004 Saint Canice’s Orchard, Coach Road/Church Lane. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 2002: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, no. 1006, 272-3. Bray. Wordwell.