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Features 5 and 6: A Preliminary Statement

During the course of the late Fall of 1996 and the first two months of 1997, project efforts were redirected to salvage efforts at Feature 5 (located at the southern end of the existing Southeast Convento Wing fronting the mission), and the beginnings of Trench 2, Feature 6 (Units 0n42, 2n42w, 4n42w, and Units 10n42w, 12n42w, and 10n41w). Whereas the excavation of Feature 5 arose as the result of the removal of an old slab of concrete lying at the south end of the sidewalk-covered arcade fronting 2nd Street, the excavations at Trench 2, Feature 6, have been undertaken so as to determine the location and extent of the Northwest Convento Wing.

Preliminary findings from Feature 5 provide indications that (a) the area in question has remained largely undisturbed since about the late 1860's, and (b) that the adobe wall that fronts the existing Southeast Convento Wing room block once extended well into the present-day road bed of 2nd Street. According to personal communications with Leo Barker, the moderator of this session, archival materials from the Santa Barbara Presidio indicate that the mission and adjacent barracks buildings (i.e. the Plaza Hotel and Castro-Breen Adobe) were once surrounded by a large perimeter wall. This may serve to explain the presence of massive (130cm wide) sandstone foundation footings extending along the course of the front of the mission and directly into the road bed that constitutes 2nd Street. This same circumstance obtains for a massive wall footing that extends southwesterward into 2nd Street along the course of the central load-bearing wall foundation of the Southeast Convento Wing at Feature 4. In this latter instance, the wall segment in question would appear to have been associated with the Old Torreon or tower that once stood at the southern end of the southeast or existing convento wing (see Egenhoff 1952:87, Figures 83, 84, 98, 142, 164, and 186).