Dave Pollock

Investigations at Barryscourt, Co. Cork, carried out for the Barryscourt Trust and the National Monuments Service in the late 1990s, produced remains of a late medieval garden, including a terrace, irrigation, planting holes, and the corner of a raised bed. 

Identifying these features sparked an interest in garden remains of all ages, and a suspicion that garden features were being routinely misinterpreted. My recent excavation at Barronstrand Street, Waterford, found indications of planting in a medieval friary graveyard.

In 2005 The Heritage Council commissioned me to undertake a landscape study of the grounds of the Bishops Palace, Kilkenny. I cut trenches and compiled an archaeological report, and Belinda Jupp researched the landscape history and provided a historic garden survey.