Well, Gardens, Co. Kilkenny

Co. Kilkenny |

Utility Structures

Well, Gardens, Co. Kilkenny

Beneath the concrete floor of a modern extension to a Kilkenny townhouse, a nineteenth-century well sits sealed and largely intact, its water long since stilled and its mouth closed off by a raft of timber planks.

It is the kind of structure that most cities have quietly buried under layers of later building, but this one was recorded before it disappeared entirely.

The well was discovered at the rear of No. 4 Rose Inn Street, a property dating to the early nineteenth century, and was excavated by archaeologist Simon Ó Faoláin. It is a drystone construction, meaning the limestone blocks were laid without mortar, relying instead on careful fitting and the weight of the structure itself to hold together. The internal diameter measures roughly 1.1 metres, and the upper courses include occasional red bricks alongside the roughly dressed limestone, suggesting some repair or modification over its working life. A lead pipe had been inserted into the well at some point, likely as part of a later effort to draw water more conveniently into the house, though no firm dating evidence was recovered to establish when that happened or when the well was originally built. During excavation, the upper two courses, amounting to about half a metre of structure, were removed under archaeological supervision. Everything below that level was left in place and is now preserved beneath the concrete floor of the extension.

There is nothing to see at street level, and the well is entirely inaccessible to visitors. Its interest lies less in what can be observed and more in the fact that it exists at all, a small domestic water source folded into the ground beneath an ordinary Kilkenny street, waiting in the dark beneath someone's floor.

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Pete F
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