Archaeologists seem to follow developers around like vultures, knowing that the developers' kills often open up intriguing relics for them to pick over. Indeed the developer is obliged to pay for their investigations when something of interest is known or suspected to be on the site - would that architectural conservationists could get similar funding to fight planning appeals to keep historic buildings standing! The current (June 2002) PFI scheme for school building has provided a site for house building on Annadale Embankment, and the demolition of the school formerly there has allowed the excavation of the former Annadale Brickworks, which had been built over.
Because of the pace of development in Belfast
in the 19th century it had a number of large brickworks churning
out bricks. The artist Paul Henry in his autobiography recalled
seeing "the unending procession of carts of bricks with which
Belfast was feverishly built". One of the best known was
Annadale, 
which used the red clay of the Lagan Valley to produce the typical
orange-red Belfast bricks in a wide variety of ornamental "specials"
and terracotta ornaments.
At the top of the site archaeologists have uncovered a Hoffman
kiln with radiating spokes into which bricks would have been loaded,
fired, left to cool and then removed in turn as the heat was directed
to successive flues over the course of the week. Elsewhere on
the site are complex tunnels 
from different stages of the brickworks' development, as well
as areas where it is assumed bricks were shaped and allowed to
reach an initial drying. It is a fascinating insight into what
was once yet another of Belfast's enormous Victorian industries.
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