EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Waterford
Wren 1993 & 1998), the vast majority (118 house foundations) were uncovered between
1986-92 when an entire city block involving four streets was excavated (Scully 1997a, 34).
The earliest and most common type was post-and-wattle structures (64 houses). Also
excavated were twelve stone houses, six sunken buildings, five stone-footed buildings, four
unidentified structures, three stone undercrofts, two timber buildings, and one stone and
timber building. Forty-six buildings had evidence for re-flooring.
Two thirds (43) of the post-and-wattle buildings (1986-92) were Type 1 with the remaining
third (21) of Type 2. The Type 1 post-and-wattle buildings at Waterford were mostly single
walled (68%) and invariably contained doorways in the end walls. A feature of the interior of
the Waterford Type 1 buildings unique to anywhere else in Ireland was the fireside benches
which occurred between the central hearth and the side aisles. The benches consisted of
rectangular raised areas adjacent to the hearth occasionally delimited by planks or postholes.
All except one of the excavated Type 1 houses between 1986 and 1992 were streetfronting
(Hurley 1997g, 896).
Discrete occupation deposits containing animal bone, straw, hazelnut fragments, cereal grains
and other material covered the floors of the buildings, particularly in the central aisle close to
the hearth. The floors of the side aisles frequently revealed a brushwood covering,
interpreted as sleeping areas. Eleven of the 43 Type 1 building’s contained horizontal
doorway thresholds while 37 had evidence for hearths, nine of which were kerbed with
stones. The hearths were situated midway between the two entrances in the middle of the
central aisles and were associated with numerous post- or stake-holes interpreted as the
remains of cooking-spits or pot-cranes.
Type 2 house constituted 33% of excavated wattle structures (1986-1992). Almost half of
these buildings were double-walled. Unlike the Fishamble examples in Dublin, the Waterford
Type 2 houses were occasionally subdivided into side aisles. They also contained clay floors
generally without any coverings of wattle, brushwood and mats though organic bedding
material was recovered from a number of the Peter Street structures containing side aisles
(Scully 1997a, 38).
Nine of twenty one Type 2 houses in Waterford contained hearths, all but one were simple
spreads of burnt clay. The lack of plant remains in the hearths indicates that foodstuffs were
not being prepared in the houses. Type 2 houses mostly occurred as subsidiary buildings to
the rear of the street-fronting Type 1 houses (Hurley 1997g, 896). They were identified as
the possible sleeping quarters of the principal residents of the Type 1 houses as they
contained frequently insulated walls, bedding material and a degree of privacy (Hurley 1992,
65; 1997g, 897).
Type 4 sunken floored structures have been uncovered in Waterford city and date to the late
eleventh century. The excavated remains comprised four sunken buildings in Peter Street,
Olaf Street and High Street and stone-lined passages of a further two structures in the Insula
South. The buildings were all situated inside the later eleventh century defences. Three of the
buildings at Peter Street and Olaf Street were located along the street frontages and may
represent the principal structures on these properties (Walsh 1997, 45).
The buildings all had a similar method of construction, set in pits with a uniform depth of
1.5m below the contemporary ground level and their walls formed of vertically set staves of
radially split ash placed directly in a narrow trench around the sides of the pits (chambers).
An upper storey at ground level was supported by opposing load-bearing oak uprights set
along the lines of the stave wall. The buildings also generally contained stone faced, steeped
entrances leading into the chambers (Walsh 1997, 48).
The sunken building from Peter Street can be securely dated to the late-eleventh century as
three primary structural uprights from the structure produced estimated felling dates centring
on A.D. 1083±9. A late eleventh century date for all the sunken buildings at Peter Street, Olaf
Street and High Street is indicated by the recovery of later eleventh-century coarse-wares
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