2023.5.3| CBC News Loaded

This stone doorway was found several feet beneath Water Street in Carbonear. The town's heritage society wants to know what it is before it gets destroyed.(Carbonear Heritage Society)

The discovery of an underground entranceway deep beneath the road in one of Newfoundland's oldest towns ignited imaginations and led to a range of hypotheses on what the structure could be. 

Was it an 18th century war shelter or hidden tunnels connecting old buildings?

In the end, it turned out to be a fairly old drain.

And while that may seem disappointing, provincial archaeologist Jamie Brake said it's still quite a find.

"It's amazing. This sort of infrastructure is really impressive and worth documenting," he told CBC Radio's St. John's Morning Show on Wednesday.

Brake worked with fellow archaeologist Blair Temple, who has plenty of experience working on similar construction projects on Water Street in St. John's.

The duo collected several artifacts from a layer of sand inside the chamber found underground.

There was a layer of sand found inside the drain, which contained several artifacts that were examined by archaeologists. (Town of Carbonear/Facebook)

Based on their assessment of the artifacts, and comparing the stone structure to similar ones found in St. John's, they concluded it was a drain system built some time in the 1800s.

Brake said there's also a 100-year-old water main that intersects with the drain, and is still in use today. 

They did find one piece of ceramic nearby, not in the drain, which dates back to the 1700s.

Carbonear was settled by the English in the early 1600s, making it one of the oldest European settlements in North America. It was a target of French troops during colonial wars in 1697 and 1705. On both occasions, the French discovered the town was empty and that all its citizens had taken shelter on the fortified Carbonear Island. Records from the time indicate people had buried their belongings, or had hidden them in the woods.

That led to some speculation that the structure uncovered several feet below Water Street could have been used to hide personal property from the French. Brake and Temple's findings put it in a different time period, however, and indicate a whole different type of use.

"That's our interpretation at this point based on the information available to us," Brake said. "It's certainly very well made, very attractive, and it's on the large end compared to other [drains] in St. John's, but still within the range that's known."

Big dig also unearths pristine cellars

In another surprising but delightful discovery, the workers undertaking the dig on Water Street in Carbonear found a pair of underground cellars.

The stone rooms were found in perfect condition, according to a post from the town's heritage society. They're about eight feet by 10 feet, with seven-foot ceilings.

These cellars were found beneath Water Street in Carbonear during a major renovation of the area.(Carbonear Heritage Society/Facebook)

"The age of the structures have not been determined as it has not yet been inspected by an archeologist," the post reads. "They are expected, however, to be of considerable age."

The cellars have a door to a building, and were found just east of the drain.

The heritage society said the contractor told them they should be able to preserve them while completing the underground work on Water Street.