2010:022 - Carrickfergus Castle (Grand Battery), Carrickfergus, Antrim

A programme of conservation and drainage work on the grand battery at Carrickfergus Castle necessitated archaeological mitigation, which was commissioned and funded by the castle’s guardians, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA). Removal of the concrete and underlying hardcore across the battery platform unveiled at least ten phases of activity, dating from the 16th century, or earlier, through to the 20th century. The main features uncovered comprised the foundations of the early 19th-century officers’ quarters which replaced an early 18th-century infantry barracks. The infantry barracks, in turn, post-dated an earlier cobbled surface that may have been laid above the vaults soon after the vaulted storehouse was built. The date of construction of this building is not known, but it has been suggested by Tom McNeill (1981, 48) that it probably dates to between the 1560s and the early 18th century. Examination of the finds excavated from deposits immediately overlying the vaults will provide a terminus ante quem for the construction of the storehouse and provisional examination of the pottery suggests that it dates to the 16th century.
The excavations yielded a rich artefactual assemblage which included two broken mill stones, the ornate stem of a probable 17th-century glass goblet, gun flints, tobacco pipes, a William and Mary halfpenny (1689–1694), a socketed iron arrowhead, animal bones and marine molluscs and a wide range of pottery. It is probable that much of this material did not accumulate in situ but was instead imported, perhaps from a midden in the town, to create a level surface across the tops of the undulating crowns and haunches of the vaults. Much of the types of pottery recovered from the 2010 excavations (e.g. North Devon gravel-tempered ware, Staffordshire trailed slipware and sgraffito ware) have also been found on previous investigations conducted elsewhere in the castle and town.