Halifax Armoury restoration archaeological monitoring, Halifax Regional Municipality : final report

Abstract

The Halifax Armoury is a masonry building constructed for the Canadian Department of Militia and Defence, now the Department of National Defence (DND), in the late nineteenth century. The building, now a National Historic Site, is still owned and operated by DND. Currently, the exterior masonry, windows, roof and other portions of the structure require repair and restoration. To facilitate restoration of the building’s foundation, a trench was to be mechanically excavated immediately adjacent to, and surrounding, the entire structure. Since the trench was to be excavated within a National Historic Site, specifications for the project required that a qualified archaeologist monitor the excavation and address any archaeological resources encountered during the course of the excavation. As a consequence of these archaeological requirements, Cultural Resource Management (CRM) Group was retained through Dillon Consulting Limited to undertake archaeological monitoring during all mechanical excavations.

The archaeological monitoring was undertaken by CRM Group Archaeological Steve Garcin with technical supervision provided by W. Bruce Stewart. The monitoring project was conducted according to the terms of Heritage Research Permit A2011NS23 (Category ‘C’), issued to Stewart by the Heritage Division. Since a significant portion of the perimeter trench was to be excavated on municipal rather than federal lands, a provincial heritage research permit was required. This report describes the study, presents its results and offers resource management recommendations.