County: Antrim Site name: Shane’s Castle Estate
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/08/145
Author: Declan P. Hurl, RSK (Ireland), Bridgewood House, 48 Newforge Lane, Belfast, BT9 5NW.
Site type: Monitoring
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 708406m, N 890115m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.747355, -6.316172
Monitoring was carried out along most of the route of new mains and sewerage pipelines linking the wastewater treatment plants at Randalstown and Hilltown, just outside Antrim. The monitored part of the route, 4.3m long, was entirely within the O’Neill estate at Shane’s Castle.
Along much of the stripped area, numerous pockets of dark-flecked grey clay were found in small depressions in the natural orange boulder clay. These turned out to be lacustrine clays deposited during inundations from Lough Neagh.
The fields were criss-crossed by plough furrows and drainage channels, the latter filled with stones, bricks and large sherds of blackware. There was also considerable rabbit disturbance.
In the central part of the route, where it flanked the A6 Castle Road, two burnt features were uncovered. They consisted of two small shallow irregular pits, 1.4m and 2m wide, 0.15m and 0.2m deep, filled with stones and charcoal-rich clays and, in the case of the larger pit, fire-reddened soil.
In the same area were a ditch and flanking gully, both running north–south and filled with a mix of grey and grey-brown clays. The ditch was 2.6m wide and 0.65m deep, while the gully on its east side was 1.2m wide and 0.55m deep. In a field further west was another gully; it measured 0.3m wide, 0.3–0.4m deep and ran east–west. Unlike all the other features, artefacts were recovered here; in the upper fill were six very small sherds of coarse pottery, possibly souterrain ware.
Another burnt feature, possibly a fulacht fiadh, was uncovered at the east end of the route, 35m from a small stream and less than 200m from the current north shore of Lough Neagh. It was a subrectangular pit, 1.9m by 0.74m and 0.28m deep, with a stake-hole or small post-hole, 0.1–0.18m in diameter, at each corner. Charcoal-rich clays and heat-cracked stones spread out from the pit.
Occasional sherds of late medieval pottery, some with green glaze, and many pieces of post-medieval pottery, especially blackware and sgraffito ware, were recovered along the route.
