County: Antrim Site name: Divis
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/13/69
Author: Ruth Logue and Henry Welsh
Site type: Vernacular house site
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 0m, N 0m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.610782, -6.017014
A small-scale excavation was carried out in the National Trust Divis and Black Mountain property at the site of a proposed car park. The excavation was undertaken by the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork in collaboration with the Belfast Hills Partnership, Northern Ireland Environment Agency: Built Heritage and the National Trust. This project involved a significant public outreach element: many local schools and conservation and community groups participated, as well as volunteers from the Ulster Archaeological Society, students/ex-students from Queen’s University Belfast and members of the general public.
A geophysical survey of the site was carried out immediately prior to the excavation. Four trenches were sited over a geophysical anomaly (no archaeological significance), flint scatters (no features present) and an area of stones visible through the surface vegetation. This stony area revealed a rectangular stone platform; it was interpreted as the foundation of a vernacular building and preliminary analysis of the finds and cartographic evidence suggest this may be of early 18th-century date.
Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork, School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast.
