County: Antrim Site name: POLEGLASS
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Mr. Alan Harper, Historic Monuments Branch, Ministry of Finance
Site type: Ringfort - unclassified
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 727724m, N 869497m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.557672, -6.025305
A rescue excavation was mounted on this small ringfort site beside the Stewartstown Road between Belfast and Derriaghy. Subsequent destruction resulted from a road improvement scheme associated with housing development undertaken by the Northern Ireland Housing Trust.
The interior of the site proved to have been heavily rigged and survival of features on much of the site was entirely fortuitous. The interior area of the ringfort sloped down eastwards to a probable causeway across the ditch. Cobbling was encountered in the eastern park of the interior where the depth of topsoil was relatively greater. Elsewhere cobbling probably had never existed since it was not even preserved between the rigs. A number of postholes and a shallow pit were found but no coherent pattern could be obtained because of the rigging. Finds included a considerable quantity of coarse pottery, probably all souterrain ware, a socketed iron goad or javelin head, a silver penny of Edward I dated 128–081 (identification kindly made by W.A. Seaby, Ulster Museum).
The ditch proved to be very steep sided but with a broad U shaped bottom 2.15m below the original ground surface as indicated by the surviving old soil beneath the spread of the inner bank.
