1980-84:0066 - COLERAINE: St. Mary's, Derry

Excavation took place to search for traces of the 17th-century town ramparts internal walling, and the Dominican Friary. The inner faces of the ramparts were sectioned, and suggested that they might have been gang-built as the sections indicated different building materials - clay and stones in one and earth in the other. Beneath them, the 1611 ground surface was visible as a turf line. Unfortunately, the site was levelled before surveying equipment was available to locate the features in the townscape. A 2m-thick masonry wall dating to the mid-17th century survived up to 1.2m in height. An unusually-angled corner of about 60~ was discovered, placing the interior of the monument towards the presumed location of the abbey. The latter had been fortified by Sir Thomas Phillips in 1619, but that construction is not comfortably identifiable with this wall, which may be part of the ‘citadel’ referred to on 18th-century maps, which was built after 1630 and demolished in 1670. Excavation evidence accorded with those dates. As well as those post-medieval structural features, Early Christian gullies and postholes were uncovered, as was a ditch, 2m wide and 1 .5m deep, which ran parallel to the River Bann and produced 17th/18th-century finds. Neolithic flints and medieval pottery were also found.
Brannon, N.E. (1988) Where history and archaeology unite’, Hamlin, A. & Lynn, CS. (eds) Pieces of the Past, IJMSO.