County: Armagh Site name: ARMAGH: MARKET STREET
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: : C. J. Lynn, Historic Monuments & Buildings Branch, Department of the Environment (N.I.)
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 687533m, N 845203m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.347989, -6.653629
An exploratory trench was opened across the site of a large store, recently destroyed. There was no solid documentary evidence for the former existence of a settlement but the site lay at the bottom of the old market square on a level shelf of ground between the Cathedral and the site of Templefertagh (a foundation of St. Patrick according to local early 9th century tradition). It was felt that this would have proved a suitable site for occupation from a fairly early date.
The trench, 27m long and 4m wide was only at intervals excavated to natural 4m below the shop floor. It was found that the area was a lake or at least marshy until the 17th century as it was only at that time that any evidence emerged for occupation in-situ on the deposit of dark brown, very peaty silt and mud which occupied the complete area and depth of sections below modern rubble and floors.
Below the 17th century level the peaty deposit was very homogeneous, the only finds being scattered sherds of everted rim cooking pottery and numerous animal bones including one complete cow skeleton. Near the top of this deposit a large piece of late 16th century German stoneware was found and on the natural surface 2m below was a socketed iron arrowhead still containing a length of its shaft. Clearly then the lake only started to form or was created at the beginning of the medieval period and must have silted up to the level of the water-table or was otherwise drained in the early 17th century.
This was the first of a series of exploratory excavations in the Armagh City area on bombed premises and on sites due for redevelopment; it is planned to sample several other areas and to undertake a fairly extensive excavation of one large site in 1976. It is to be hoped that other areas will provide more rewarding archaeological details on excavation but the Market Street site has provided unsuspected information about the medieval topography of the city which is to be valued in a place of the historic importance of Armagh.
