1974:049 - MASSEREENE (Antrim Town), Antrim

The second season’s work was concentrated on clearing the site of the church and on examining the ditches first uncovered in 1973. Excavations were possible within the garden which had prevented further digging in 1973 and the entire outline of the church foundation was exposed. The building was a simple rectangle 29.25m x 8.5m externally with the side walls 0.8m thick and the gables 1.15m thick. For most of their length the walls were ruined to the level of a broad irregular foundation course of boulders and only over short distances did the first faced course survive. No sign was found of any architectural elaboration, internal structures or even the position of the door. The interior of the church was full of burials and the disturbed garden loam, 50cm deep on average, extended down to them; there were no remains of any part of the original floor. Outside the E gable a small dry-stone built drain ran parallel with the foundations about 20cm to the E evidently flowing to the river from the S.

It was noted that the church foundations had been markedly thickened over a distance of 9m at the E end of the S wall, that a 2.3m wide foundation ran off to the S at approximately 6.5m from the E end and that walling on the line of the E gable continued to the S past the S wall. (The area available for excavation was very constricted here because of the proximity of a dwelling house almost immediately on the other side of the boundary fence). It was thought that this might represent an attached domestic building and an early 17th century reference to “the castle of the friars” at Massereene led to the conclusion that these foundations might be part of the roughly square base of a tower house type structure. Assuming such a building to have been square internally, (though its walls were patently of differing thicknesses) a small trench was opened in the garden at the position of its SW angle; the excavation located a corner in foundations at precisely the estimated position. It is likely then, though not quite proved, that the plain rectangular friary church had a tower house type building with walls of different thickness attached to its SE end.

The ditch located to the W end of the church last season was further explored on this side and the position of an entrance causeway, spanned apparently by a low bridge, was found 10m S of the W end of the church. This main ditch, dated c. AD 1500-05. by coin evidence does not seem to have fully enclosed the church but rather to have swung off to the N and joined the Six-Mile-Water; it was probably intended more for drainage than defence. It has been suggested on indirect evidence from maps and documents that the site of the friary was remodelled to become the Fort of Massereene of the Elizabethan wars but no archaeological support for this came from the excavation.