2011:172 - QUOILE CASTLE, Down

In May 2011 the Northern Ireland Environment Agency: Built Heritage requested that the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork carry out a small excavation at Quoile Castle, Co. Down. The monument is in State Care. The excavation took place in the southern chamber of the first floor of the castle, directly over a ground-floor vaulted arch. The investigation was carried out to examine the nature and condition of the vault roof and to inform proposed new conservation and improved drainage in this part of the castle. Another objective of the excavation was to examine the wall footings of the dividing wall that separated the northern and southern chambers on the first floor of the castle, to see whether this wall was founded on an earlier one. The excavation was also carried out in the hope of recovering dating evidence from the construction period of the castle to help to date the monument more closely. Excavation showed that there were three main dumped layers within the haunches of the vault and below the modern floor level of the first floor of the castle. Finds included pottery (including German stoneware) from the late medieval period, along with animal bone, slag, clay pipe stems and cut stone. The wall dividing the first floor of the castle into two chambers was not founded on an earlier wall.

Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork, School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University, Belfast BT7 1NN