County: Antrim Site name: BALLYGALLEY CASTLE HOTEL, Ballgalley
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 35:15 Licence number: AE/00/42
Author: Cormac McSparron, NAC
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 737172m, N 907798m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.899099, -5.861296
Monitoring and trial excavations were carried out at Ballygalley Castle before the construction of a hotel extension there. The castle is located on the east Antrim coast in the village of Ballygalley, c. 50m from the current high-water mark. It is just to the east of the Ballygalley River, which is known as a find spot for flint artefacts. The area of construction at Ballygalley was limited to the tennis courts to the west of the hotel enclosure and closest to the river.
There were no archaeological features found during the trial-trenching/monitoring. A considerable number of pieces of worked flints and a few flint artefacts were found in imported beach gravel. Many of the flints are indicative of the late Mesolithic period, with at least one dating to the Neolithic.
Unit 6, Farset Enterprise Park, 638 Springfield Road, Belfast
