2003:450 - NEWRY: Bagenal’s Castle, Down

Newry and Mourne District Council propose to carry out restoration work on the site of Bagenal’s Castle/McCann’s bakery, Newry, Co. Down, in order to develop this building as both a museum and tourist information centre. Investigations carried out at Bagenal’s Castle by John Ó Néill (Excavations 2000, No. 202, AE/00/65) revealed the existence of the 16th–18th-century ground plans of the castle; further investigations are also required as part of the proposed restoration works.

An assessment was carried out by Margaret Gowen and Co. Ltd in order confirm the identity of the castle structure as depicted on ground plans held in the Crown Record office. A number of test-trenches were placed within the grounds of the castle. Results of this testing confirmed the existence of building remains of both Nicholas Bagenal’s castle and Needham’s castle, two post-medieval townhouses and the Victorian bakery beneath the modern floor level. In particular the possible remains of an infilled undercroft possibly associated with the abbey was uncovered below part of the ground floor.

Additional archaeological investigations were required in order to confirm the existence of the undercroft and also to further substantiate the ground-floor layout. Four initial trenches were opened, two of which were later extended, based upon the archaeological remains uncovered. These trenches both confirmed the ground-floor foundation plan and also located a secondary basement within the southern portion of the building.

Trench 1 was located within the north-east quadrant of the inside of the building, being 7m by 3m in size, incorporating both the northern foundation wall and the central dividing wall of the castle. The first 0.1m fill of the trench consisted of a rubble clearance layer—a light-brown, friable, sandy, gritty rubble dump (C6). This was underlain by a thin black, peaty deposit (C15), no more than 0.03m thick. This layer appears to be the C110 which was uncovered during the previous testing, which the excavator interpreted as being the remains of a possible wooden floor layer. It is likely that this layer extends across the entire floor level of the northern portion of the ground floor. Beneath the rubble layer within the northern and southern end of the trench, two substantial walls were uncovered. The northern wall (C12) was approximately 1.5m wide, consisting of three courses of well-cut regular faced granite stone blocks, resting upon a layer of substantial irregular cut-stone foundation boulders. A small section of the foundation trench for the wall was excavated along the southern edge. The cut for the trench extends 0.75m outside of the inner face of the wall, suggesting that a very substantial foundation trench was excavated for the construction of this building. A secondary line of boulders was uncovered extending alongside the inner face of this outer wall (C20). These appeared to be regularly placed along the wall with a width of between 0.5 and 0.75m. The function of these boulders is not entirely clear, although it can be assumed that they are a later addition to the structure, as they lay up against the well-defined inner face of the castle wall. This boulder deposit may represent an additional course of boulders set along the base of the castle wall to support a ground-floor vaulted roof, or it may be the remains of building collapse.

The internal partition wall (C234) at the southern end of Trench 1 was equally substantial, being 1.5m wide and consisting of a course of regularly cut boulders resting upon a series of irregularly cut foundation boulders. The internal doorway located in earlier testing was fully uncovered, surviving as a clear 1.1m-wide break in the wall c. 1.5m from the west castle wall. This break in the partition wall was clearly defined at each side, with faced boulders extending along each side of the wall break. A plaster-covered floor was identified at the base of the wall, defining the threshold of the doorway to the north. This was overlain by the peaty layer uncovered elsewhere in Trench 1. This doorway appears to have been blocked up at a later stage. Approximately three-quarters of the width of the doorway in its southern portion had been blocked up by a deposit of large irregular but rounded stones and small boulders to produce an uninterrupted wall dividing the internal floor plan of the castle.

Directly beneath the peaty floor layer was a 0.15–0.2m-thick deposit of soft grey/brown silty sand, containing light charcoal flecking, small stones and flecks of plaster (C1). This was interpreted as a construction layer associated with the above floor level. This further overlay subsoil—a reddish-orange, friable, clayey sand—at a depth of 0.35m below the current ground level. Both the foundation trenches for the walls of the castle and the later drain described below were cut through subsoil.

Within the eastern half of the trench a 0.3m-thick layer of concrete overlay a long drain-like feature (C3) extending north–south across the trench in between the two walls of the building. The drain measured 0.75m in width and survived as a series of elongated cut boulders set across the width of the drain, which was delimited by a series of large round stones placed longitudinally along each side of the drain. No finds directly related to the construction of this drain were recovered. However, a box section taken through the foundation trench of wall (C12) showed that the trench for this drain cut through the upper levels of this feature, thus proving it to be a later feature. The trench for the drain was relatively insubstantial, being little deeper than the depth of the actual stones placed across its width.

Trench 2 was located within the south-west quadrant of the ground floor of the castle and incorporated a previous test-trench, which had identified a series of steps which fell below ground level. This trench was 3.5m wide and both encompassed the internal dividing wall and extended south for a distance of 4.5m. A secondary, smaller, 0.75m-wide extension (Trench 3) extended southwards towards the fireplace alcove at the southern end of the building.

Removal of the rubble infill of Trench 2 revealed a large basement covering over half of the ground-floor area of this southern room. The basement consisted of a roughly square room, 4.5m north–south by 4m and c. 1.8m deep. Access was through a stone stairwell, consisting of eight steps within its north-west corner which fall to a roughly cobbled floor. The stairs are constructed from regularly hewn blocks of stone 0.75m by 0.4m in size and 0.25m deep. The basement walls (C204/208) are constructed of irregularly spaced courses of large boulders (c. 0.5m by 0.25m in size) interspersed with smaller irregular-shaped stones which were consolidated with a loose, greyish, sandy mortar. The stones for the northern wall appeared to have been keyed into the lower foundation courses for the main internal division wall of the castle. The basement had been completely filled in from its floor to present ground level, while a modern sewage pipe extended east–west through its middle at roof level. These infill layers produced red brick, 18th/19th-century pottery sherds, plaster fragments, metal nails, animal bone and shell. Three coins were recovered from the upper fills (C219, 220, 230) of the basement within its south-west corner, dating them to between 1860 and 1919. The remains of what may have been the original door of the basement were recovered in the form of a door lock barrel and large hinge clasp, while a long fragment of wood was recovered from the doorjamb at the edge of the stairwell.

Outside the limits of the basement the remains of a small cobbled floor were uncovered along its southern and western sides. This layer is comprised of a compacted deposit of small rounded stones c. 0.05m in size. The cobbling underlay a compact, orange, sandy clay deposit (C200), which contained small flecks of mortar, plaster and bone. This layer was overlain by the first step into the basement stairwell.

A third linear trench, Trench 4, was excavated along the length of the east wall of the castle within the southern portion of the room, to identify the remaining foundation courses of the castle wall and confirm the existence of the basement within this portion of the ground floor. The main foundation courses of the castle wall were uncovered for 2.5m from the internal dividing wall before it was disturbed by the later sewage pipe. It was not possible to pick up the remainder of the east wall further south along the trench, but the remains of an east–west extending wall were uncovered, presumably the remains of the southern wall of the basement. Although the remainder of the eastern external castle wall was not located at this point, it is probable that it extends beneath the existing breezeblock wall.

Trench 5 was opened up around the location of the tower base at the north-east external corner of the castle. This confirmed the existence of the foundation stones of the tower, which enclosed an area c. 2m by 3m internally. The northern wall of the tower appears to be a continuation of the northern wall of the larger castle structure, while the southern wall (C402) of the tower as uncovered is c. 1.1m thick, comprised of large stones set within a compact, light-brown, sandy mortar. The full extent of this southern wall and its relationship to the east wall of the main castle structure has not been determined, due to the occurrence of a large deposit of concrete in this area, which may represent the structural foundations for the modern east side wall. The partial remains of the east wall have been uncovered within the north-west corner of the trench. The east wall of the tower base appears to be much less substantial, consisting of a loose setting of stones with a width of 0.45m. These may represent the upper courses set upon a much wider lower foundation wall, or may be a later structure placed between the two more substantial walls of the tower base, the original east wall no longer surviving. The internal area of the tower base has been filled with a hardcore and concrete mix; not all of this deposit was removed, due to its durability. However, a line of seven small stone boulders (C403) has been identified extending north–south across the middle of the tower base. Due to the similarities of this feature with the drain located within Trench 1, it is possible that this represents the remains of another drain feature associated with the function of the tower as a latrine block, although complete removal of the modern concrete layer would confirm this.

These investigations have confirmed the ground-floor plan of the castle as described in historical records. The original outer walls and internal dividing wall foundations survive as substantial stone walls approximately 1.5m thick. The vaulted room evident on this early plan of the site appears to have been at ground level rather than at basement level, as was hinted at through earlier testing within this part of the building.

The basement located within the southern portion of the ground floor is a secondary feature, inserted at a date later than the construction of the castle. Construction of the basement wall appears to have been carried out by underpinning the middle partition wall and keying the basement wall stones into the lower foundation courses of the partitioning wall, the doorway of which had been blocked up with similarly sized stone blocks.

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