Belsay Castle, Northumblerland: Site Archive Completion and Assessment for Belsay Castle Evaluation, June 2018
Author(s): Thomas Cromwell, Julie-Anne Bouchard-Perron, Nicola Hembrey, Duncan H Brown, Florian Stroebele, Karla Graham, Matt Canti, Polydora Baker
Three trenches were excavated at Belsay Castle to examine the archaeology in areas likely to be impacted by planned development of new café facilities. Footings of the coach-house west wall were exposed extending 0.75m below ground, along with bedrock discovered 0.8metres below ground level, but this is 0.7m above the internal floors and thresholds of the doorways on the east side of the structure. Archaeological features are present below the topsoil. The footings were probably a terrace retaining wall with insubstantial foundations, before later structures were built on top culminating in the present coach-house. South of the coach-house two roughly parallel walls were found, running north-south in line with the coach-house. The western wall possibly began as a retaining wall, while the east wall was always free-standing, with no evidence for a floor between them. A deep stone box drain runs along the east face of the coach-house, with side branches visible. Two parallel lines seen in the geophysics running east across the lawn towards the kennels from the south corner of the coach-house could be a demolished “north range” for the manor house. In the walled orchard topsoil gave way to boulder clay with large slabs of stone approximately 0.6metres below surface. A single east-west linear feature was found but this was badly disturbed by a large tree root from a massive stump.
- Report Number:
- 48/2019
- Series:
- Research Report
- Pages:
- 64
