A corn-drying kiln of this type was a practical fixture of pre-modern grain processing: harvested grain, often still damp in the Irish climate, would be dried over a low fire channelled through a narrow flue into a small chamber, making it safe to store or mill. This one, built from sandstone, had a cobbled chamber measuring just 0.9 metres in internal diameter and was surfaced with sandstone slabs. It is modest in scale, almost domestic, which makes it a quietly telling detail about the neighbourhood it once served.

The excavation was carried out by Christine Tarbett and Kenneth Wiggins, funded by Limerick Corporation over seven months, and formed the second phase of investigations at a site that had already yielded significant finds. In 1981, Dr Ann Lynch of the OPW had excavated to the west and uncovered the foundations of the medieval town wall and a twin-towered gate known as the West Watergate. The 1989 dig was prompted by trial trenches showing stratified medieval deposits further east, and by the desire to locate a structure marked as a 'Castle' on Ordnance Survey maps of 1840 and 1871. Working conditions were difficult; tidal flooding from the Abbey River persistently interrupted the excavation of the northernmost section. The earliest layers, containing pottery dated to the late 12th to early 14th century, also produced wooden bowls, leather shoes, a leather scabbard, and textile fragments. Alongside the kiln, slag deposits in the adjacent area pointed to a metal-working operation nearby, together suggesting that this part of Limerick, known historically as Irishtown, functioned as a working artisan quarter. Its strategic significance was also considerable: the West Watergate stood close to Baal's Bridge, at the time the sole crossing between Irishtown and Englishtown on King's Island to the north.

There is nothing to see at the site today. The area around Charlotte's Quay has been redeveloped, and the medieval remains, after recording, were covered over. The record of the excavation is held in the national monuments database, and the finds give the clearest sense of what once occupied this unremarkable stretch of riverbank. Walking along Broad Street or the quayside, it is worth knowing that roughly 3 metres below the present surface, the layered evidence of a medieval working neighbourhood, grain kilns, leather-workers, metal-smiths, and defensive walls, was preserved intact until relatively recently, and that its documentation came about partly because a car park was due to be built on top of it.