County: Derry Site name: DERRY: 10–12 Artillery Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/06/236
Author: Brooke Jamieson, Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Site type: Burial
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 643442m, N 916487m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.994090, -7.321121
The site evaluation consisted of the monitoring of building foundations to the rear of an existing property. The site formation consisted of orange/buff clay subsoil, which was cut by three pits. One of these pits contained the partially articulated remains of a human skeleton. It is likely that this skeleton dates to the late 17th century, more specifically to the Siege of Derry in 1688–9. During the siege, the dead were buried in whatever open space was available, before mass reburial in what is now known as the Mound of Heroes in the grounds of the nearby Church of Ireland cathedral. It is likely that this body was overlooked at the time and when discovered during the 18th-century development of the site was hastily reburied in a small shallow pit. The burial and the other two pits were all sealed with 18th/19th-century garden soils. These garden soils were cut through by four basements, a number of 20th-century rubbish pits and drains and sealed with a cobbled surface, which was the original surface of the yard prior to redevelopment.
30–50 Distillery Street, Belfast, BT12 5BJ