It's amazing how much history continues to be uncovered in the United Kingdom. Recently, this discovery in Northern Ireland highlighted hidden castles. Here's the story from the BBC.
Image: A castle built under the command of Sir Arthur Chichester in the early 1600s was destroyed by fire a century later
Northern Ireland: Belfast: The hidden castles under the city's shops
The history of Belfast can be told through many of its street names and buildings, much of it reflecting the city's industrial heritage and Victorian boom.
But in one block, under the feet of shoppers, there is a story which dates back several hundred years.
Castle Lane, Castle Arcade, Castle Place and Castle Buildings.
Each pays tribute to the site of not one, but three Belfast castles, and archaeologists believe their foundations and artefacts could still lie below the surface.
Part of the area is the former British Homes Stores (BHS) site, which is now to be converted into a complex of leisure and retail units. It will be called The Keep, a nod by developers to a past which was first referenced in 1262.
'Strategic base' - Then it was an Anglo-Norman castle, believed to consist of an earthen mound, similar to mottes that remain visible in townlands such as Dundonald.
It was a "critical part of the medieval Norman settlement of Belfast", striding the Farset River, which we now know as High Street, archaeologist Ruairí Ó Baoill told BBC News NI. However, the site was destroyed in the 1300s, as power shifted to the Gaelic lords in Ireland, such as the Clandeboye O'Neills.
The O'Neills in turn built a new castle, a "strategic base", Mr Ó Baoill explained.
"We know there was a castle there because there are references to it being attacked in the 1400s and the 1500s in both Irish and English histories and it's actually shown in two maps," he said.
Medieval burials have also been documented in Cornmarket, an area which is now home to shops, cafes and buskers.
According to Queen's University academic Dr Colm Donnelly, the O'Neill castle would have looked like a tower house, "a small building, maybe four storeys high", with rooms stacked on top of one another, connected by a spiral staircase.
Similar stone towers from this period have survived, such as Audley's Castle and Kilclief Castle, close to Strangford. "They were abandoned by and large in the 17th century, but they survive in the Irish landscape," Dr Donnelly said.
The Clandeboye O'Neill building is believed to have resembled tower houses such as the 15th century Kilclief Castle, near Strangford.
"They're really well constructed, but they're not immune from the forces of nature, such as frost getting into the walls." This second Belfast castle was also replaced, but not entirely.
"At the end of the 16th century the Gaelic lords went into revolt and they were defeated by the forces of Queen Elizabeth I, one of whom was Arthur Chichester," Mr Ó Baoill said. "He was given land all over the place, including the town of Belfast."
The Chichester castle features prominently to the top right of Thomas Phillips' map of Belfast in 1685.
A report by the plantation commissioners in 1611 gives an account of shops being built in the new Chichester town, with 120,000 bricks being used by masons. Among the writings is a reference to the old "decayed" castle, the O'Neill building, part of which was retained and linked to the new Chichester castle via a staircase.
The third castle survived for a century, but burnt down in 1708, killing four people, including three sisters of the 4th Earl of Donegall.
The Plantation of Ulster explained It can be seen in a map of Belfast in 1685, however, along with the city's walls, which were ground-made ramparts that partly enclosed the town. "It was smack in the centre of Belfast, around Cornmarket and Castle Arcade," Mr Ó Baoill said. "Underground are the remains of at least two castles side by side, and possibly the Anglo-Norman one as well, but it's really frustrating because you can't see them."
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