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The tale of a ditch, dentures and bishops' buttons
WHAT were a pair of bishop's buttons doing at the top of Talbot's Tower, and why did the town ditch contain numerous dental moulds from the 19th Century? These were some of the many facts explored around the county as Heritage Week began on Saturday.
The two matters in question relate to Talbot's Tower, a watch tower at the corner of Kilkenny's City Wall, of which visitors were given free tours by Kilkenny Archaeology on Sunday as part of Heritage Week and the Irish Walled Towns Day.
The tour, led by local archaeologist Ciln Drisceoil, began with the exterior of the tower and City Wall, bordered by the former 'town ditch' and which was the site of an earlier wooden City Wall.
The town ditch would have been emptied periodically when there was a threat of attack, but it was eventually filled in when the wall was no longer the main line of defence for the town. Sometime after this point, a local dentist began using it as his own personal skip, Mr Drisceoil noted, and the 19th-century dentist discarded a large number of plaster dental moulds. It was, the archaeologist said, the strangest find he'd ever come across.
As for the buttons, it isn't known exactly how they got to the top of the tower, but the site is known to have been a meeting place for local people in its later years.
A large hole had developed in the medieval structure, and instead of repairing the damage, the area was instead filled in with a sod layer in the late 18th or early 19th Century and covered with grass and trees.
It clearly became a popular meeting place, particularly for "courting" couples apparently, as "an unbelievable amount" of ladies' buttons were found there. As for the bishop's two buttons found there, Mr Drisceoil left it up to the imagination.
Talbot's Tower is currently in the process of becoming a different sort of meeting place, as it is being redeveloped into an archaeological park which will include informational signage and the town ditch open to view. Located at the corner of New Street and Ormonde Street, the site is also due to see the section of the Town Wall that fell in 1989 rebuilt by the end of next year.
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Weather for Kilkenny
Thursday 23 February 2012
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