Tag: William Marshal

Finding Flemingstown Kilkenny

Project lead Dr David Stone of the Discovery Programme Centre in Ireland explains their plans for geophysical survey at Kilkenny.

Archaeologists from the Discovery Programme Centre for Archaeology and Innovation Ireland, Dr David Stone, Dr Susan Curran and Cian Hogan, together with Cóilín Ó Drisceoil of the National Monuments Service, are beginning a new project to explore the grounds of Kilkenny Castle in search of the lost Flemingstown. This is one of the most intriguing missing parts of the castle’s medieval history, a former settlement associated with the castle, documented in historical sources, but whose location has since been lost as no traces of it remain visible on the ground. With the generous support of the Castle Studies Trust, work will begin in the last week of March on a new survey of the parkland east of Kilkenny Castle known as the Dukesmeadow.

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Kilkenny Castle, copyright The Discovery Programme Centre for Archaeology and Innovation Ireland

Kilkenny Castle (Figure 1) is one of the great fortresses of medieval Ireland. Built by William Marshal between approximately 1207 and 1213, it still dominates the modern city’s skyline and remains one of the county’s best known historic sites. The standing remains at Kilkenny Castle, however, tell only part of the story. Research over the last decade has shown that the medieval castle complex once extended far beyond the surviving Inner Ward into what is now open public parkland. A geophysical survey in 2010, followed by excavation in 2019, confirmed the position of the great gatehouse and revealed that the castle’s original layout was far more complex than had long been assumed. That earlier work also identified a dense area of subsurface archaeology, including defensive features, routeways and elements of a designed landscape in the outer park. The new project will target the one major area of the castle landscape that remains unexplored, the Dukesmeadow (Figure 2 & 3), which is also the most likely location of Flemingstown.

Figure 2: Dukesmeadow, Kilkenny, copyright The Discovery Programme Centre for Archaeology and Innovation Ireland

Flemingstown appears to have been a purpose-built settlement connected to the castle and associated with Flemish settlers. It was probably established in the early thirteenth century to house Flemish weavers, millers and other artisans, either drawn from Pembrokeshire or from Flanders itself. The settlement is first recorded in 1339 as Villa Flemang. By 1413 it seems to have been largely deserted after its inhabitants were moved to Danesfort by the earl of Ormond. Even so, later writers still described traces of an extensive former settlement surviving near the castle, including the mid seventeenth century Bishop of Ossory, David Rothe. LiDAR evidence also suggests that traces of this settlement may survive in the lower parkland in the form of earthworks, possible plot boundaries, enclosures and a hollow way.

Figure 3: Dukesmeadow, Kilkenny, copyright The Discovery Programme Centre for Archaeology and Innovation Ireland

This makes the project significant not only for Kilkenny, but for castle studies more generally. Castles were not simply defensive structures or elite residences. They were also centres of economic activity, planning, movement and display. Flemingstown offers a chance to examine Kilkenny Castle as the centre of a broader lived-in landscape, and to investigate the role of an immigrant artisan community within that setting. It may be the only attested example in Ireland of a purpose-built colonial castle settlement established specifically for an immigrant artisan community. If that can be demonstrated more clearly on the ground, it will give the site importance well beyond Kilkenny itself.

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The team will use magnetic gradiometry across the Dukesmeadow, supported by targeted earth resistance survey on selected features. The aim is to detect buried boundaries, routeways, possible plot divisions, structures, pits or industrial features, and perhaps elements of an enclosing circuit. In practical terms, success would mean producing the first clear interpretative map of Flemingstown’s extent and internal organisation, while also clarifying how it related to the Outer Ward, surrounding meadows and approach routes into the castle complex. Just as importantly, the survey should identify the best targets for future research.

This project is therefore about recovering a missing part of Kilkenny Castle’s story. By identifying what survives beneath the parkland, the survey will provide the foundation for future research. It will also help bring back into view a forgotten community that once stood at the edge of one of medieval Ireland’s most important centres of power. For visitors to Kilkenny Castle, that promises a richer and more complete picture of the monument, not just the great fortress that still stands, but the wider lived in landscape that made it work.

The project team would like to thank the donors and patrons of the Castle Studies Trust for their generous award, which has made this project possible. We would also like to thank The Discovery Programme’s CEO Dr John O’Keeffe, Projects Manager Clare Lancaster, the National Monuments Service, and the Office of Public Works, especially Albert Jordon and Colm Mangan, for their assistance with this project.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.

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Pembroke Castle keep – William Marshal’s statement in stone

Neil Ludlow, co-project lead in both the Castle Studies Trust funded 2016 geophysical survey and 2018 excavations looks at Pembroke Castle’s most iconic structure, it’s keep.

Pembroke Castle is probably best-known for its magnificent cylindrical keep, begun in 1201-2. But why was it built? And how was it used? These and other questions are being explored as part of the wider study of the castle.

Great keeps like these were bold statements of power and prestige. At Pembroke, it seems the keep was also celebratory and commemorative, marking the marriage, ennoblement and inheritance of its builder, William Marshal – and in the most conspicuous way. But it was not intended for residential use: there is neither bedchamber, latrine nor water supply. Household accommodation was instead provided by the great hall, while a chamber block served the Marshal earls on their rare visits to Pembroke.

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Use of the keep, as intended, was restricted and episodic, probably confined to the handful of occasions when the earl visited. Access was clearly limited to those above a certain rank – for instance, there is only one spiral stair and no separate stair for lower ranks. And the interior had to be crossed to get to the stair, showing that its use was strictly controlled.

Pembroke Castle keep section drawing. Copyright Neil Ludlow

The main chamber lay on the second floor, which has a high-quality window and a fireplace. It may have been intended as an audience or reception chamber, and a setting for formal and ceremonial occasions. It has been suggested that its external doorway was served by an external bridge and stair from the curtain wall, but such an arrangement is inconsistent with the remains. The doorway may instead have led onto an appearance balcony, visible from the town before the outer bailey was added and allowing the earls to be seen by their subjects. Similar balconies existed at King Henry II’s round keeps in France.

Pembroke keep second floor door. Copyright Neil Ludlow

The first floor, at entrance level, may have been an anteroom or ‘waiting area’ for the second floor. It too has a fireplace. The uppermost chamber lies beneath the unique, masonry dome. It lacks a fireplace, suggesting events here were of short duration. Nevertheless, it is lit by a second elaborate window, while a decorative painted scene can perhaps be envisaged on the underside of the dome. It may have been a ‘prospect chamber’ for entertaining special guests. Other openings, at all levels, are very narrow slits which are too small, too narrow and too high up to have been used by archers, and were probably for light and ventilation only.

At summit level, at least one major change in design occurred during construction, which culminated with the crenellated parapet and concentric inner wall that now crown the keep. As originally built, the dome seems to have been circled by a wide, slate-lined drainage channel. The slates are fossilised, as a series of crests and troughs, within the concentric inner wall and seem to have been truncated when the present wall-walk was established. It is not known whether they were contemporary with the overhanging timber hourd, the sockets for which can be seen beneath the present parapet, but it is difficult to envisage how the two could have worked together.

Pembroke Castle keep from southeast (photo: Adam Stanford @ Aerial-Cam)

Hourds like this are now thought to have often been leisure-related rather than military,providing a viewpoint from which a lord’s estates could be shown off to his important guests. At any rate, this overall scheme was replaced, possibly before it was complete, by the present parapet, wall-walk and concentric inner wall. Another slate channel, within the latter, runs around the haunches of the dome and is of very similar design to the earlier drain. These substantial drainage arrangements may indicate that the dome was not roofed, perhaps instead being finished with slates like the domes of some later medieval church towers in south Pembrokeshire.

Much later alterations at summit level included the insertion of a floor beneath the dome – creating an attic space which was accessed from the wall-walk through a secondary doorway, and lit by crudely-inserted window – showing how the keep’s role changed through time, with loss of its original prestige. And much of the dome’s facework was robbed, perhaps to make the central ‘turret’ that now occupies the summit. Part of the second drainage channel was removed in order to create access to this turret, confirming that it is a later addition, but it was present by c.1600 when it was shown in a sketch of the castle.

Either one of these summit alterations may be contemporary with the partition in the body of the keep, the chase (or scar) for which survives in the internal plaster. The plaster contains coal fragments; a corresponding absence of charcoal suggests that the present finish may itself be late, but also means that it cannot be radiocarbon-dated.

Pembroke Castle keep from north (feature photo) Adam Stanford @ Aerial-Cam

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