St. Mary's Medieval Mile Museum

St. Mary’s Church in Kilkenny has been converted into the Medieval Mile Museum. The building is the starting point of the ‘Medieval Mile’ trail and houses the city’s Civic Treasures and displays many important carved limestone tombs and funerary monuments from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The project combines sensitive restoration and contemporary design to an exemplary standard. The medieval building, originally constructed in the 13^th Century, required some extension for the display of artefacts in a controlled environment and the project became an experiment in the use of archaeology to help define an architectural solution.

The new elements are made of timber and lead, lead’s soft malleability a foil to Irish grey stone and sky. The project worked with the nature of the building, providing a new stone floor, repairing materials, leaving exposed a large section of the original medieval timber roof which acts as a focus in the plan. The chancel had historically been reduced in size and the nave originally had aisles. Archaeological excavations revealed the presence of extant foundations under the earth. New structures were placed on these, amplifying the spatial complexity of the building and developing a sequence of internal spaces.