It is not a wall, not a floor, not anything that announces itself with confidence. It is a posthole and a pit, the faint skeletal remains of what may once have been a medieval structure, preserved more by accident than intention and still sitting exactly where it was left, sealed beneath centuries of accumulated soil and rubble.

The features were identified by archaeologist Cóilín Ó Drisceoil during test excavations carried out in 2009, in the gardens of the former Bishop's Palace, itself a significant complex in the ecclesiastical landscape of the city. What made the discovery particularly telling was the layer directly above the posthole and pit: a deposit of garden soil containing a sherd of Kilkenny-type pottery dating to the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Kilkenny-type pottery is a locally produced medieval ware, recognisable to specialists and useful for dating the layers in which it appears. That garden soil was itself buried beneath a succession of rubble and earth dumps laid down at various points between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries, each representing an attempt to level a steep natural slope falling away toward Vicar Street to the east. The landscaping efforts were essentially a long, slow battle with topography, and the medieval remains survived precisely because they were buried under the debris of each successive attempt to tame the hillside. The possible structure now lies in situ beneath the newly built extension to the coach house, unexcavated and unresolved, its function still unknown.