County: Down Site name: SPITTLE QUARTER
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 38:34 Licence number: —
Author: N.F. Brannon, Historic Monuments and Buildings Branch, DOE(NI)
Site type: Souterrain
Period/Dating: Early Medieval (AD 400-AD 1099)
ITM: E 752918m, N 840403m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.289496, -5.651109
Trial excavations were carried out on a souterrain partly threatened by proposed roadworks.
The souterrain comprised five open chambers, over a length of 27m, with evidence for collapse at two points. Excavation was initially limited to emptying of Early Christian period backfill, beneath topsoil, and the exposure of the drystone roofs of two chambers, at the east end, directly threatened by roadworks.
It was found that the trench originally dug to receive the souterrain had severely undercut edges, and it seems probable that this was a deliberate engineering feature designed to provide a balancing counter-thrust to the weight of the stones forming the inward-leaning walls. It is not known if this method of construction has been recognised elsewhere.
To the north excavation revealed the edge of a shallow (collapsed) chamber, which was not investigated, but which will be examined during the roadworks scheme.
Excavations at the partly-collapsed west end of the souterrain, with several slit trenches beyond and to the north-west, found that the souterrain had originally extended for another 30m. A straight, uniformly-profiled passage, it ran upslope to a probable entrance (and settlement site?) on the crest of a low hill. Unfortunately, this passage was entirely collapsed. Limited investigation revealed an 'up-and-over' stepped creep, a fragment of a large (blank/broken in manufacture?) rotary quern or millstone, built into the souterrain wall, and a sherd of souterrain ware in topsoil. See Brannon, N.F. 'A souterrain in Spittle Quarter townland, Co. Down', Lecale Miscellany, no 8 (1990), 39-41.
