County: Antrim Site name: DUNLUCE CASTLE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: N.F. Brannon, Historic Monuments and Buildings Branch, DOE(NI)
Site type: Courtyard
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 690332m, N 941281m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 55.210488, -6.580680
The excavation was necessitated by a proposal to erect a shop/visitors' centre in an area measuring 12m by 6m which was bounded by ancient stone walls on three sides and by a modern one on the fourth. The site lay in the south-west of the complex of buildings on the mainland.The excavation revealed that the area had been a paved yard, continuous with the main post-medieval courtyard on its fourth side. The stratification can be summarised as follows:
(a) Topsoil.
(b) Redeposited clay and rubble, containing pottery ranging in date from the 17th to the 19th century.
(c) Features which had been dug, including a large pit and a gully which contained 18th-century sherds.
(d) A layer of paving which was bounded by early walls on three sides but on the fourth side ran out from the rectangular area to the open courtyard.
(e) A layer, up to 0.4m thick, of yellow/brown clay containing building debris and charcoal. This was interpreted as a bedding deposit for the paving and may have come from elsewhere in the castle.
(f) Subsoil.
The excavation also demonstrated that the modern ground level in an adjacent building is much higher than the original floor level and indicated that a doorway in its west wall could be a formalisation of an ancient breach in the wall.
