1993:004 - CARRICKFERGUS CASTLE, Antrim

The excavation was carried out on behalf of the Environment Service, Historic Monuments and Buildings, DoE (NI), between January and March 1993. The first floor entrance to the castle keep (located in the inner ward) is reached from an outside stairway against the east wall of the keep. The stairway is retained by a stone wall. A Cultra stone jamb and springing for an arched doorway at the top of the stairway marks the entrance to a forework or platform in front of the keep doorway. The jambs and arch of the keep doorway are also of dressed Cultra stone. The Anglo-Normans used the dressed stone for quoins in the later phase of building work on the inner ward curtain wall, replacing sandstone which was used in the earlier phase. It was also used for quoins, jambs, arches and lintels in the keep.

A modern flight of steps was planned to replace the worn sandstone steps on the stairway and a watching brief was held during their removal. In the course of this work a stone step was revealed at the base of the stairway, lying underneath the sandstone steps which were being removed. It was decided that the area at the base of the stairway should be excavated to investigate if this step formed part of a medieval stairway. A trench, approximately 1.5m (north-south) by 2.6m (east-west) was excavated to a depth of roughly 2m where the surface of the promontory was encountered.

Pot sherds and pieces of clay pipe dated the upper layers of soil encountered to post-medieval times. However, the removal of this debris revealed the full extent of the stone step identified during the watching brief. It also revealed a similar second step. Both steps were firmly bonded into the east wall of the keep, suggesting that they belonged to a medieval stairway. A layer of crushed Cultra stone, some 0.06m to 0.2m in depth, lay under the steps and ran under the lowest course of foundation stones along the east wall of the keep. A surface of large basalt boulders was found in the east section of the excavated area.

Archaeological investigations during July 1993 provided further information. When post-medieval debris was removed from the top of the stairway, dressed Cultra stones were uncovered. These belonged to the foundations of the doorway into the forework or platform at the top of the stairway and the original keep entrance doorstep. As this cleaning 'procedure' progressed down the stairway it became clear that the whole flight of medieval steps survived. The remains of nine steps were exposed, each approximately 1.56m wide, 0.22m deep and between 0.55m and 0.56m long. The steps were followed down to where the two lowest steps had previously been recorded during the excavation earlier in the year. The medieval stairway consisted of 11 steps in all.

A plinth of cut and dressed basalt was revealed during pipe-laying where the east wall of the keep meets the north inner ward curtain wall. It ran under the keep and was not bonded into the keep fabric. This confirms that the inner ward curtain wall predates the erection of the keep. The inner courtyard surface of large basalt boulders was found to be laid against this plinth. In the course of the same work it was noted that the 19th-century entrance in the inner ward curtain wall cut through the medieval foundation plinth to the north side of the entrance-way.

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