2006:50 - CARRICKFERGUS: YMCA site, Lancasterian Street, Antrim

The development site lay on the south side of the west end of Lancasterian Street, just to the west of St Nicholas’s Church in Carrickfergus. It was entirely occupied by a former YMCA hall. This site was a relatively short distance (c. 8m) east of (inside) the projected line of the 17th-century town wall. The late 19th-century building was demolished and was to be replaced by ground-floor retail units and apartments with an identical location and plan.

The site seems to have been just outside the medieval town’s defences. However, it was partly within those of the Elizabethan period town. The map of Carrickfergus of 1596 showed these extended Elizabethan defences. The development site was just inside the north-west corner of the defences. Indeed, it seems likely that the north-west bastion of these defences was within the site and the defences may have run through the site (or just to the north). The defences seemed to consist of a wall with an external ditch (not visible in the north-west) and a circular bastion. The area between the yard of St Nicholas’s and the defences was empty, although beehive huts lay to the south.

Lythe’s map of Carrickfergus of 1567 showed a similar scene but in much less detail. The only point of interest is the fact that it clearly shows a stream passing the western side of St Nicholas’s Church, presumably partly forming the curved western edge of the churchyard. This area seems to be marked as high ground. There was no evidence that buildings existed at the site until the 19th century, although there were buildings just to the south by the second half of the 18th century. The map of 1767 showed the development site as empty but for this stream, but O’Kane’s map of 1821 showed on-site buildings and no stream.

Monitored excavation of the new foundations revealed no evidence of the Elizabethan defences but did uncover that the stream visible on the early maps was culverted at some time in the late 18th or early 19th century. This confirmed the map information. The stream had been diverted along the footpath at the north face of the site, through the north-eastern corner and southwards down the eastern side of the site in the direction of the main street. The culvert was built of basalt boulders with a red-brick arch in its southern portion. It was 1.3m in width and 1m in height. There was no floor to this culvert other than what appeared to be the old streambed. The method of construction shows that the stream banks were reinforced and walled and a curved roof constructed over, in places with basalt, in others with brick. The culvert within the area of the YMCA building, a length of c. 8m, had been collapsed, probably in the mid-20th century, and filled with building rubble. To the south of the YMCA building the culvert appeared to have been replaced by a modern concrete pipe network, suggesting that this length of collapsed culvert had been bypassed. Nothing else of archaeological significance was uncovered.

638 Springfield Road, Belfast, BT12 7DY