What lies beneath - archaeologists reveal what they found during excavations at Steeple and Old Courthouse

ANTRIM Historical Society recently got to hear about artefacts unearthed from excavations of the Steeple area and the Old Courthouse at Market Square in the town.

The group heard a presentation from Jonathan Barkley and Katy McMonagle titled ‘Excavations in Antrim’.

Jonathan graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in 2003 with a degree in Archaeology and has over twenty years experience in the commercial sector of archaeology. Jonathan has been an archaeological site director since 2007 and has managed the excavation of some of Northern Archaeological Consultancy’s biggest commercial projects. Jonathan now acts as overall project manager for NAC Ltd.

Jonathan is also NAC’s ceramic specialist, having produced reports on prehistoric, medieval, and post medieval pottery assemblages. He is also a member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.

Katy graduated with a degree in Archaeology from the University of Wales, Trinity St David in 2014 and with an MA in Field Archaeology from the University of York in 2016. Katy began her archaeological career in 2014, and first began working for Northern Archaeological Consultancy Ltd in 2017 and has been eligible to hold excavation licences since 2018.

In addition to undertaking onsite testing and management of excavations Katy also undertakes lithic analysis and surveying. Katy is a member of the Ulster Archaeological Society, the Prehistoric Society, Lithics Studies Society and Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland.

The Steeple Road project took place from 2005 to 2009 before the construction of a housing development and yielded the remains of enclosures, flint, pottery and even a road, which was a very rare find.

Some of the items would have belonged to the first hunter-gatherers who came to what is now known as Antrim, up to 6,000-years-ago.

Middle to Late Neolithic period discoveries included, postholes, stakeholes, pits and a ditch.

From the Mesolithic to Early Medieval period was a large natural hollow containing an accumulation of artefacts.

From the Early to Middle Neolithic era, there was a small natural hollow and pits with another accumulation of artefacts.

From the Bronze Age and some Neolithic years, there was a ring barrow and associated pits and postholes - though some predated the barrow and may be Neolithic.

There were also hearths and a potential Early Neolithic house and an occupation area.

A field system associated with a house was also found, and an Early Medieval occupation site yielded an enclosure, souterrains and houses bordering a cobbled roadway.

An Early Medieval stone built house, more field systems and a single isolated feature containing a beaker pot were also found.

A prehistoric pit and Mesolithic and Neolithic artefacts were also located in the topsoil.

The pair also worked on an area of Steeple Park near the historic Round Tower.

A mixture of Radiocarbon dating and Dendrochronology was used.

Dendrochronology is where a single sample of wood had sufficient rings to be counted.

The tree rings were dated to AD543 - AD643 - with a possible felling date of AD675, as it was unclear how many rings were missing.

Radiocarbon Dates is taken from short lived species. Oats were found to have dated back to AD 803 - 968 and barley from AD 856-976.

During this time, the team also found a bronze ring pin from a ditch, which would have been used to fasten a monk’s cloak. There were also beads of glass and ceramics, and worked flint from the prehistoric period.

Artefacts recovered from the Mesolithic period included a single direction bladelet core, from Early Neolithic, several projectile blanks and two leaf shaped arrowheads, from Middle Neolithic, hollow scrapers and a an arrowhead, from Neolithic, a Langdale axe from England and pottery from the Bronze Age and Early Medieval period.

Moving on to the Old Courthouse study in 2009, the pair showed a slide where the building was shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832.

Before the court house was built, the floor area would have been a mixture of soil, rubble and waste and the team found animal teeth, horn and bone and shards of pottery between the market square and courthouse floor.

The original cobbled floor of the courthouse, with pillar bases present was also found.

A horseshoe was discovered embedded in the surface of the floor and also the remains of a cannonball.

Its weight when found was 5lbs, with a diameter of 4 inches.

It would have originally have been a 9lb ball fired from a demi-culverin cannon

Turning to when it was fired, the pair figured that it had to be before the construction of the Courthouse in 1726

In 1641, the town was surrounded and then attacked by 4,000 Irish rebels. After the town was taken it was attacked again by Clotworthy, with cannon on ships in Lough Neagh

In 1649, Cromwellian troops was welcomed into the town, which was then besieged by a Royalist and Irish force.

In the 1690s the garrison fled and it was unlikely any cannon fire took place.

By 1726 the Courthouse was built and floor levels were raised. In 1798 the town was attacked by United Irishmen. They only possessed a single 6-pound cannon and no cannon balls, with accounts indicating they filled it with musket balls and burning peat.

It was concluded that the cannonball must have been fired in the mid 17th century.

Mr Barkley, whose family come from the Steeple estate, told the Antrim Guardian that there is ‘an awful lot’ of important archeological sites in the town and surrounding area.

“Antrim is very rich in history, you have the town and the Steeple site, with one of the most intact round towers in Ireland, which all have held a wealth of material from very early origins.

“There are lots of friary, monastery and church sites and souterrains, which have often been found by farmers ploughing or losing a sheep in a hole! This was a very important centre of life back then.

“The whole Six Mile Valley right down to Lough Neagh, with Antrim on the corner, would have seen lots of sites and mottes, there was very good access to all the important things needed for life back then and it was always well-occupied because of that.”

Mr Barkley said that the Old Courthouse was an excellent example of conservation and renovation.

All of the artefacts found during various digs were handed back to the landowner, and the cannonball was held on display for a time in the foyer of the Old Courthouse.

He said that people have ‘mixed feelings’ when historical sites are built on.

“It’s that old argument, if people didn’t plan to build on the site, we would never be employed and the stuff would never be found.” he said.

“With no structures above ground, there is nothing really to look at, it’s a series of holes in the ground that would be filled in again in several months.

“I get more annoyed about people wiping out buildings like the ruins of Antrim Castle, or raths.

“And yet we have Springfarm Rath in the middle of a housing estate, well preserved.

“Preservation by record is the compromise. We are still storing some things we have found and in the future there is hope that the Department for Communities’ Historic Environment Division will establish a repository where these things can be more widely accessible.

“What I have found in Antrim is that a lot of people were not living in enclosed settlements but just outside them.

“I guess the monks had important things to be doing, but they also needed to eat and be clothed and that required infrastructure, so those who supplied the food and the logistics set up close to or around those settlements.

“There was not so much in the way of formal organised towns.

“And what I have also learned is that the Vikings never really got a foothold in Ulster was because the people hated everybody else. They were very much their own people and didn’t want anyone else coming in, English, Scots or anyone else!

“If you read the Annals of Ulster, they were very much their own people and if they were not fighting with their neighbours, they were fighting with each other.”