1990:003 - BELFAST: Donegall Street, Antrim

Sampling excavations were carried out in advance of development of a 1.8 acre site. The 1685 Phillips picture-map of Belfast shows that this area was crossed by the 17th-century earthwork defences of the town, traditionally thought to have been raised c. 1640. In the late 18th century the laying out of Donegall Street, and associated frontages, erased this defensive line.

A single machine-trench was excavated across the development site and revealed an 18th-century soil horizon cut by later foundations. Manual excavation through this deposit exposed the ditch, just over 3m wide and 1m deep, cut into waterlogged subsoil (sand). On its inner edge, deliberately laid basalt boulders and stones were interpreted as a foundation for an upcast earth bank.

The fill of the ditch comprised of layers of waterlogged humic soils, containing well-preserved organic materials (animal bones, leather shoes, textiles, and fragments of worked and unworked wood), ceramics, glass bottles and clay tobacco pipes. Large pottery sherds suggested that broken vessels had been discarded in the ditch from nearby. The articulated remains of dogs and cats, cloven sheep/goat skulls, and the horns of longhorn and shorthorn cattle, will supplement the domestic and industrial faunal data from the 1984 excavations at Pottinger's Entry and Waring Street.

Development of the site as a pedestrian precinct is likely to ensure the below-ground survival of approximately 60m of the ditch. Landscaping of the site to promote public appreciation of the feature is now being considered.