County: Down Site name: Castle Ward Demesne
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/06/73
Author: Malachy Conway, The National Trust, Historic Properties Department, Rowallane House, Saintfield, Co. Down, BT24 7LH.
Site type: Historic demesne/post-medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 757146m, N 849217m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.367346, -5.581591
Monitoring was undertaken during the insertion of a pre-cast concrete tank (slurry tank) within a concrete surfaced stockyard located on the south-west side of the old farmyard complex at Castle Ward, Strangford.
The site for the new tank was located within the centre east side of the stockyard, itself located on the west side of a larger square courtyard area known as the Cattle Yard, containing the tower-house ‘Old Castle Ward’ at its northern end (DOW031–059). A trench measuring c. 3m in diameter and excavated to a maximum depth of 2.5m to house the slurry tank was excavated by mechanical digger. Removal of the concrete surface and stone foundation layer revealed the remains of a red-brick drain along the east side of the trench. Excavation to the base of the trench was through sterile clay and did not reveal anything further of archaeological significance.
A narrow pipe trench was mechanically excavated south and south-west of the tank location to link with existing drainage pipe-works that were located at the edge of an adjacent greenfield, forming part of the Scheduled Monument area of the 18th-century designed landscape garden known as the Temple Water Canal Landscape (DOW031–071). From this intersection point and following the grant of Scheduled Monument Consent from the Environment and Heritage Service, the existing pipe drain was tracked and opened and a new gauge plastic pipe inserted. No features or finds of archaeological significance were encountered during these supplementary works.
