2002:0016 - BELFAST: 26–28 Waring Street, Antrim

An excavation was carried out from 16 September 2002 to 25 January 2003 at Nos 26–28 Waring Street, Belfast. The site was at the corner of Hill Street and Waring Street, within the historical core of the town, and covered an area of 400m2. Sites 1 and 2, Cotton Court (No. 15, Excavations 2002), lay immediately to the east and north. The work was carried out before the construction of a basemented bar. It was hoped that the excavation would uncover evidence of the (so far unlocated) Belfast Potthouse. This building, Belfast’s earliest pottery, was in operation in c. 1697–1725 and produced high-quality tin-glazed earthenware.

The excavation revealed no evidence of Belfast’s medieval origin. However, evidence of significant 17th-century activity in the form of property boundaries, drainage gullies and pits was uncovered on the site, pre-dating the construction in brick and stone of a terrace of late 17th-century buildings that fronted onto Waring Street. These are tentatively identified as the Potthouse tenements, where the pottery workers lived. They are the oldest buildings excavated to date in Belfast. Stratigraphy along the frontage broadly corresponds to that in the 1999 excavation by Paul Logue (Excavations 1999, No. 6) nearby.

No clear evidence of the Potthouse itself was uncovered during the excavation. The implication must be that the remains of the pottery buildings lie farther up Hill Street or perhaps under the nearby Cotton Court building. Because of the proximity of the mid-/late 18th-century masonry remains found farther back from the Waring Street frontage, these have been tentatively interpreted as those of a small foundry.

Many thousands of artefacts were retrieved from the excavation, including glass, metal, clay pipe, coins and animal bone. Ceramic types recovered included 17th–18th-century North Devon and Staffordshire wares, delftware pottery and much kiln furniture from the Belfast Potthouse, along with large amounts of locally produced earthenwares; delftwares from London and possibly other English centres; decorated floor and wall tiles; Palissy-type and Saintonge wares from France; Werra, Westerwald and German stonewares; and Dutch slipwares.

Perhaps the most significant discovery from the excavation is that well-stratified archaeological horizons and masonry remains survive from at least the 17th century in this part of Belfast, despite centuries of continuous building. This gives hope that they also survive elsewhere in the historical core.

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