2010:051 - Abbey Theatre, Abbey Lane, Armagh, Armagh

The CAF were asked by NIEA to carry out an evaluation excavation prior to the construction of an extension to the Abbey Theatre, Abbey Lane, Armagh. Two trenches were mechanically excavated which revealed, under a considerable overburden of 19th- and 20th-century rubble, the presence of a dark, waterlogged, organic-rich layer which contained fragments of animal bone. It was decided to widen the excavation and a trench measuring 5m by 4m was excavated, covering as much of the footprint of the extension as could be safely dug without undermining the surrounding building and perimeter walls. Mechanical assistance was again utilised to remove the rubble overburden. When the overburden was removed, several phases of early medieval activity were detectable.
In the north-east of the site there was a large subrectangular pit, measuring approximately 1.3m by 1.2m and 0.5m deep which had several distinct fills. The base of the pit was filled with a very dark-brown organic-rich loam beneath a layer which was at first believed to be a large circular flat piece of wood but which on excavation was found to be a dense layer of compacted vegetable matter. The top of the pit was filled by a number of discrete sand and loam layers the uppermost of which contained two fragments of abraded coarse pottery, probably souterrain ware, and a number of fragments of amber.
In the east of the site there was a curving gully emerging from the section which may have been contemporary with the subrectangular pit. It had two fills, a clay lower fill and a loam upper fill which contained a lot of animal bone.
The subrectangular pit and curving gully both cut through a linear gully which was 4.2m long, up to 1m wide and 0.55m deep at its deepest. It ran north-east to south-west and appeared to get shallower towards its north-western end. This gully had two fills, a loam basal fill and a darker silty loam upper fill which contained charcoal. There were a number of patches of burnt clay sitting on this upper fill especially at the southern end of the gully; these may have been the remnants of later burning which had contributed to the high charcoal content of this layer. This linear gully cut into a grey/brown loam relic topsoil layer, which was almost devoid of finds except for a few pieces of struck flint.
A second cut, running between the west and south sections in the extreme south-west of the trench, also cut through this relic topsoil. It was at least 2m long, in excess of 1m wide and at least 0.5m deep. It was probably a linear gully similar to the longer one running through the centre of the site mentioned above. It had two fills: a clay loam basal fill which contained one fragment of an early medieval bone comb and a darker clay loam upper fill which contained both burnt and unburnt bone.
The early medieval archaeological features at this site have been waterlogged for at least part of their existence and there is good preservation of organic remains at the site. It is hoped that this site, located as it is less than 200m from Cathedral hill, will be able to expand our knowledge of the environment of Armagh at an extremely important juncture in its history, both through an analysis of the plant macrofossil remains from the site, but hopefully also through pollen analysis, all set within a tight radiocarbon chronology.