County: Down Site name: Ballyphilip
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/07/256
Author: Brian Sloan, Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork, School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University, Belfast, BT7 1NN.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 759217m, N 850850m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.381365, -5.548878
A phased archaeological investigation was carried out in advance of the redevelopment of Portaferry Lifeboat Station, Ballyphilip, Co. Down. The site lies c. 50m south of a 17th-century tower-house owned by the Savage family (DOW032–003). The redevelop-ment of the station involved the demolition of the current station, and the construction of a larger structure. Initially three 2m by 2m test-pits were mechanically excavated in the landscaped area to the east of the current lifeboat station. The results indicated a deep (2m) stratigraphy, on the most part made up of modern dump and levelling deposits, as well as rubble associated with the construction of the current lifeboat station in the 1980s.
The second phase of the investigation involved the monitoring of the mechanical removal of the upper strata to the surface of the natural bedrock across the development area, to facilitate the excavation of the foundations for the new lifeboat station. The investigation proved that the area has undergone substantial truncation and disturbance in the recent past, and nothing of archaeological significance was encountered during the archaeological works.
