House - medieval

The National Monuments Service's description

Archaeological excavation (E002016) during 2006 in Kiely’s yard which is in the south suburb of Trim outside the town wall and on the E side of Emmet Street recorded two medieval houses. These would have been on the S side of the town fosse (ME036-048042-) and the Luppard Water stream. Only the W walls fronting onto Emmet St. and the E walls of the houses, together with the dividing wall, were recovered. The N house (int. dims 3m N-S plus; 5m E-W) was built against the S (int. dims 7m N-S plus; 6m E-W) house. All the walls (Wth 0.6-1m) were double-faced with a loose rubble-core and a clay and mortar bond, which could have supported upper storeys. The larger house had a stepped entranceway (Wth 1.4m) down to the interior in the W wall and an entrance (Wth 1.1m) opposite it in the E wall. Structural features included in situ posts and timbers, a dividing wall or stair support and two levels of floor surfaces and hearths. The smaller house had only one floor surface with numerous stake-holes close to the walls. The houses were built over a stone-lined cess-pit that had been sealed with rubble and a raft of timbers. The earliest features were a number of quarry-pits that may have been related to the construction of the town wall.

Attached to the rear (E) of the houses were two small stone structures (int. dims 1.6m x 1.6m; 1.7m x 0.9m) without doorways that are interpreted as storage lockers in a yard area where 52 pits were recorded with deeper stratigraphy on the N side as the ground sloped down in this direction. The pits included quarry-pits, a stone-lined cistern, a lime-slaking pit, and at least three large cess-pits, one with a wooden toilet-seat. An E-W gully and lines of posts could be a property boundary. Post-medieval features include the walls of an extension to a grain store with associated cobbling and drainage features. The pottery recovered indicates a high medieval date for the houses (AD 1250 to 1400). (O’Carroll 2009; 2009a, vol. 1, 32-40)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 8 July 2019

O’Carroll, F. 2009 Trim Castle Lawn/Castle Street/Townparks South Carpark/Emmet Street, Trim. Urban medieval 13th-15th century. in I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 2007: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 440-2, No. 1661. Dublin, Wordwell

O’Carroll, F. 2009a Excavations in Townparks South, Trim, Co. Meath. Final Report. Licence No. C121 & C 139, E002016. Unpublished report, 2 vols. CRDS