Stone
and Slate Quarries in the Ormond Deeds
Niall
C.E.J. O’Brien
The surviving medieval
landscape is full of ruined stone churches, abbeys, and castles. Often these
buildings just appear in the documentary evidence as if by magic. But occasionally
references are made to stone and slate quarries.
Stone
quarry
Sometime in the 1260s,
Brother Nicholas de Ros, prior of Kells, made a lease to Gerald Onoel of a half
mark of land at Ynchebritan with 15 acres of land in Cnochynnoc for one silver
mark per year. As part of the lease, the priory was to have passage rights
across the land to their quarry and bring from there whatever was necessary to
the church and houses of Killolehan.[1]
Killolehan is possibly Kiltorcan church which was held by Kells priory in 1540
and now forms part of Derrynahinch civil parish.[2]
The Kiltorcan area is still today (2019) noted for its sandstone quarries and
the ancient fossils within the rock.[3]
Kells priory
Slate
quarry
In August 1348 Matthew
son of Richard Fitz Oliver granted leave to the Prior and convent of St. Mary
at Kells to take away slate stones from his slate quarries in Melagh and
Carrigmokelagh. The prior could take the slate whenever necessary for the use
of their houses for the term of forty-nine years. If Matthew Fitz Oliver or his
heirs contravened this grant then Matthew would pay the priory one hundred
pounds of silver.[4]
Carrigmokelagh maybe the place-name of Carrikmoclagh in Iverk while Melagh
equals Methelagh, both of which places were granted, in 1355, by Patrick son of
Richard Fitz Oliver to Thomas son of William, son of Hugh the Clerk.[5] In
1379 Walter Datoun quitclaimed Melagh (Metlagh) to James Butler, Earl of
Ormond.[6]
Later documents give Mealaghmore in the barony of Kells as equal to the Melagh
of 1348.[7]
Certainly the townland of Mealaghmore was located in the heart of the
nineteenth century slate quarries around the passage tomb of Knockroe.[8]
Other
quarries
Sometimes quarries are
mentioned in the documents without saying if they were stone or slate quarries
or some other type of quarry. Such is the case in two documents from May 1315
in which Sir John de Hanstede granted and quitclaimed to Robert de Nottingham,
citizen of Dublin, the watermill at Lotereleston, Co. Dublin and the manor of
Lucan with all its appurtenances including quarries, marlpits and sandpits.[9]
Sometimes two different
quarries were used in the fabric of a medieval building. The parish church at
Earlstown was originally built around 1220 using sandstone mouldings for the
windows. In the late medieval period these were replaced by limestone ogee
headed windows with bars for glazing.[10]
Imported
stone
The transport costs of
carrying stone overland for a long distance was very expensive. But transporting
stone by river and sea transport was relativity cheap. Many important building
imported some of their stone materials from overseas. Duiske abbey at
Graiguenamanagh used not just local granite and schist stones but also employed
yellow Dundry stone from the Bristol area. The River Barrow allowed boats to
carry this stone across the Irish Sea and up to the abbey site.[11]
It is possible that some of the quarrymen and masons who built abbeys like
Duiske were from England.[12]
After the Norman Invasion a large number of English, Welsh and Continental
settlers made their home in east Leinster, including south Kilkenny.[13]
In the early thirteenth century the large undertaking of Kilkenny castle was
built with grey carboniferous limestone and possibly some masons from overseas.[14] Limestone
was quarried not just for its building stone or stone for sculpture but was
used in abundance for burning lime to make mortar for the medieval buildings.[15]
Quarries
in not continuous use
The fact that quarries
are rarely mentioned in Inquisitions Post
Mortem and other medieval documents describing landed property would
suggest that quarries were not in continuous use but were opened whenever stone
was needed and then left to nature to grow over.[16] In
the Gloucestershire feet of fines from 1199 to 1299 a quarry was mentioned only
once and that as a geographical position finder for one acre of land.[17]
The fact that the Ormond Deeds, running from 1172 to 1603, mention quarries
three times is therefore not too bad of a record.
Not
every medieval building was of stone
Because of the surviving evidence of stone churches,
abbeys and castles one can sometimes get a false idea of what the medieval building
world was like. In reality most medieval buildings were made of timber,
including important buildings. In 1307 the castle upon the motte at Callan was
mostly built of wood with just one stone structure. The main hall was a timber
building with a roof of wooden shingles.[18]
Callan was an important manor in the centre of the Kilkenny liberty.
Even in the sixteenth century,
with its many surviving towner houses of stone dotting the landscape, not every
castle was made of stone. In 1549, Sir William Whelan, rector of Listerlynge,
owed Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, £100. One of the conditions of the bond was
that with five years of January 1549 William Whelan was to build a timber
castle with glazed [windows] and a slate covered roof. The castle was to be
surrounded by a ‘wall of green sods’ or a bank of earth, for defence. William
Whelan also had to build a bake-house and plant an apple orchard.[19]
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[1] Curtis,
E. (ed.), Calendar of Ormond Deeds,
1172-1350 A.D. (Dublin, 1932), no. 70. The rent was to be paid in
Kyllolehan church.
[2]
White, N.B. (ed.), Extents of Irish
Monastic possessions, 1540-1541 (Dublin, 1943), p. 190
[4] Curtis
(ed.), Calendar of Ormond Deeds,
1172-1350 A.D., no. 805
[5]
Curtis, E. (ed.), Calendar of Ormond
Deeds, Volume II, 1350-1413 A.D. (Dublin, 1934), pp. 15, 317
[6]
Curtis, E. (ed.), Calendar of Ormond
Deeds, Volume II, 1350-1413 A.D. (Dublin, 1934), p. 167
[7] Curtis,
E. (ed.), Calendar of Ormond Deeds,
Volume III, 1413-1509 A.D. (Dublin, 1935), pp. 48, 59, 139; Curtis, E.
(ed.), Calendar of Ormond Deeds, Volume
IV, 1509-1547 A.D. (Dublin, 1937), p. 177; Curtis, E. (ed.), Calendar of Ormond Deeds, Volume V,
1547-1584 A.D. (Dublin, 1941), pp. 159, 203, 315
[8]
O’Sullivan, M., ‘The Eastern Tomb at Knockroe’, in the Old Kilkenny Review, No. 47 (1995), pp. 11-30, at p. 11
[9] Curtis
(ed.), Calendar of Ormond Deeds,
1172-1350 A.D., nos. 504, 505
[10]
Shine, L., ‘The Cantred of Erley: a case study of manorial organisation’, in
the Old Kilkenny Review, No. (2003), pp. 11-25, at p. 14
[11] Murray,
C., ‘The stones of Duiske Abbey, Graiguenamanagh’, in the Old Kilkenny Review, No. 56 (2004), pp. 113-120, at pp. 114, 115
[12]
Hunt, J., Irish Medieval Figure
Sculpture, 1200-1600 (2 vols. Dublin, 1974), Vol. 1, p. 112
[13]
Shine, L., ‘The Cantred of Erley: a case study of manorial organisation’, in
the Old Kilkenny Review, No. (2003), pp. 11-25, at p. 23
[14]
Murtagh, B., ‘The Kilkenny Castle Archaeological Project 1990-1993: Interim
Report’, in the Old Kilkenny Review,
Vol. 4, No. 5, (1993), pp. 1101-1117, at pp. 1101, 1104
[15]
Murray, C., ‘The stones of Duiske Abbey, Graiguenamanagh’, in the Old Kilkenny Review, No. 56 (2004), pp.
113-120, at p. 115
[16]
Dryburgh, P., & Smith, B. (eds.), Handbook
and Select Calendar of Sources for Medieval Ireland in the National Archives of
the United Kingdom (Dublin, 2005), pp. 230-274. These pages contain a calendar of a large
selection of varied medieval documents concerning property and no reference to
a quarry.
[17]
Elrington, C.R. (ed.), Abstracts of Feet of Fines relating to Gloucestershire
1199-1299 (Gloucestershire Record Series, Vol. 16, 2003), no. 58. The acre of
land was located above the quarry operated by Richard Prim in the region around
Cirencester.
[18] Clutterbuck,
R., Elliot, I., & Shanahan, B., ‘The Motte and Manor of Callan, Co.
Kilkenny’, in the Old Kilkenny Review,
No. 58 (2006), pp. 7-28, at p. 23
[19]
Curtis, E. (ed.), Calendar of Ormond
Deeds, Volume V, 1547-1584 A.D. (Dublin, 1941), p. 27
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