1980-84: 0014 - CARRICKFERGUS: Antrim Street, Antrim

Demolition of frontage housing for road widening and shopping development gave access to a large linear zone within the medieval town, to the rear of the medieval frontage, where the stratigraphy was confined to the 13th-16th centuries. Crude divisions suggesting different functions were found within the site. At the S end a preserved medieval plank alignment has been interpreted as an animal feeding trough, originally located within a small lean-to structure, while to the N midden-like layers were found containing large quantities of animal bones. Further N again was part of a deep gully, small ditch, possibly a property boundary.
Finds from this site included a sherd of Roman-period pottery, a bronze buckle, and fragments of leather shoes. Pottery was largely Carrickfergus kiln-derived ware and late medieval everted rim ware.
Two other sites within the town were threatened by development and trial trenching took place. In the Old Council Yard, late medieval (possibly agricultual) gullies ran under the inner face of the 17th-century town wall, and within the N bastion was a late-medieval ditch of considerable size; a gold pendant dating from the 16th century was found there. At the Bowling Green, a late medieval ditch similar to that noted above was sectioned, perhaps inferring that the 17th-century town wall alignment owed something to an earlier definition of the area.