EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Waterford
Fragmentary structural remains were uncovered in four east-west plots along Bakehouse
Lane. The earliest features were in the most southern plot and consisted of an unlined hearth
laid upon the bank material, re-deposited in the late eleventh-century defensive ditch as well
as some uprights, possibly indicating some structure (McCutcheon 1997b, 164-65).
The three northerly plots were established later (Levels 9-10, (mid/late-twelfth century)) and
were built above and to the west of an area of extramural dumping which occurred after the
construction of the first stone defences of the town. They contained a series of Type 1 and 2
structures late in the sequence of wattle-walled buildings. The entrances were unusually in
long axis of the house which occupied the width of the plot (north-south). The houses were
large by Waterford standards (10m-11m by 5.5m-6m) with the north and south portions of
the structures divided into distinct ‘rooms’ from the central area (McCutcheon 1997b, 165).
The term Insula South was used to define the evidence of houses to the south of Peter Street
and north of Lady Lane and bounded to the west by the eleventh-twelfth century ramparts
(Fig. 294). Post-medieval basements had truncated most of the archaeological layers along
Lady Lane. Deliberate levelling and successive burial also meant the limited survival of
structures in the area of St. Peter’s church in the northern half of the Insula. Structural
remains were identified in four areas of the Insula, of which one contained a definite type 1
house (McCutcheon 1997b, 172-75).
Fig. 294: Excavated buildings in the Insula South, Waterford, 1986-92 (after Hurley et al.
1997, 173).
An excavation at Lady Lane in the early 1980s uncovered evidence for the remains of the ‘old
wall’ a shallow (1.5m deep) broad ditch (7m wide) to the east as well as two east-west
orientated post-and wattle structures which pre-dated the cutting of the ditch and were dated
by the excavator to the twelfth century (Moore 1980-84; 1983; Hurley 1997b, 10).
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