2009:014 - BALLYLOUGH CASTLE, BALLYLOUGH MORE, Antrim

As part of NIEA’s programme of survey and excavation at Plantation period sites, excavations were conducted in 2009 at the castle of Ballyloughmore by the University of Ulster in partnership with the Centre for Archaeological fieldwork at Queen’s University, Belfast. Ballylough Castle is situated 2.5km south of Bushmills, Co. Antrim. It is positioned just under a kilometre from the River Bann to the west and immediately north of a former lake that was drained in the 18th and 19th centuries. The lake now consists of wet marshy ground fringed by trees and vegetation. Prior to drainage, the castle would have been positioned on a promontory or raised land projecting southwards into the lake. This original position is not immediately visible due to the extent of landscape change that has taken place over the past three centuries. A high ridge on a north–south orientation passes to the east of the site, rising to a height of c. 55m OD. Further east, at a distance of 1.5km, lies the parish church of Billy.
Only a small section of the castle now stands, consisting of two walls forming an L-shape. The masonry structure stands over 11m in height and appears to represent the remains of a former three-storey structure. The structure was subject to extensive refurbishment in the first decades of the 19th century when Archdeacon Traill is noted as having created alterations to the structure. In particular he underpinned the north-east end of the projecting northern wall, refaced and repointed much of the outer masonry work and built a thin pointed arch doorway in the inner face of the west wall. A dovecote was inserted at first-floor level at this time. A domed alcove is present at ground-floor level in the north-west internal corner of the site and would appear to represent an oven.
A number of distinct phases can be seen across the site. There is a clear early medieval horizon present. This consisted of a ditch cut into the subsoil at the base of a slope. The ditch was a single-phase cut and is here interpreted as the surrounding ditch for a now much levelled rath that was situated immediately to the north. There is clear topographic evidence in the form of a slope leading to a levelled internal area. Unfortunately this area was extensively landscaped during the late 18th and 19th centuries and this has heavily impacted upon any earthworks that may have been present. The ditch was over 1m deep with sloping sides and a flat bottom and was in excess of 9m in width. The original depth of ditch would have been deeper, given the changing ground levels. A number of sherds of souterrain ware came from the basal deposits of the ditch providing a general early medieval date. It appears that an earthen bank and possible palisade trench were originally positioned at the head of the slope at the northern edge of the ditch as evidenced by the presence of post-holes.
In the late 13th century a substantial fortified masonry structure was built at the site. This dating evidence is provided in the form of numerous sherds of Ulster coarse medieval pottery dating from the period 1250–1400 as well as a number of sherds of high-medieval glazed pottery (which dominate the ceramic assemblage in the primary contexts), similar to Ham Green wares. It is apparent that much of this structure was levelled in late medieval times and was probably further impacted upon during building works in the post-medieval period. However, the foundation of a substantial wall was located running east–west from the standing remains through Trenches 2 and 3, measuring over 22m in overall length and over 2.5m thick. It is important to state at this juncture that the excavations did not define the overall ground plan of the original castle and what we are left with here is conjecture. It does not appear that this wall represents the full length of a central keep, hall or castle building but rather represents an enclosing or curtain wall running from, and in line with, the front wall of the castle. This may have originally enclosed a courtyard or served as a defensive wall cutting off the promontory. The wall is absent to the west of the castle and would not have cut off the complete promontory. Originally we can speculate that the central building would have been represented by a square block measuring c. 12m by 12m with an internal division at the internal southern end of the building. At some point in the late medieval period the castle underwent some conversion, with the addition of the wicker-centred vault in the mural passage.
The site was clearly partially destroyed towards the end of the late medieval period. This is shown through the paucity of early to mid-18th-century finds and the absence of any obvious architectural features from this period. The original hypothesis was that Captain Stewart might have occupied the castle when he was granted the land here from the Antrim estate. It seems clear now that this was not the case and that he instead built a new house elsewhere, probably on the footprint of the existing house. In the 18th century the castle is a ruin and becomes an integral part of the landscape garden design adopted at Ballylough. It is now included as part of the avenue of trees running from the house to the lake’s edge. A number of contexts in the stratigraphy also clearly represent riddled garden soil deposited across the site as part of the landscaping. Archdeacon Traill, at the beginning of the 19th century, undertook extensive refurbishment of the ruin and engaged in large-scale landscaping. The evidence for this work is clearly shown in the levelled construction and mortar deposits in the upper levels of the stratigraphy and the numerous fragments of red brick strewn across the site.
Finally, in the 20th century, a number of gravel paths are laid down, a number of the trees from the avenue removed and a new sod layer developed
across the site.