Watching Brief

Date March 1997

Event ID 1012312

Category Recording

Type Watching Brief

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1012312

NS 983 806 A watching brief was undertaken by Kirkdale Archaeology during works on a well within the 'palace' wing of Kinneil House. The well was located in a room known as the 'boiler room', a small barrel-vaulted chamber in the extreme SE corner of the building, presumably originally functioning as a service room. The floor of the chamber comprised stone flags, and it was the subsistence of these into the softer well-fill deposits which first led to the discovery of the sub-floor feature around three years ago. Excavations were then undertaken, and approximately 4m of the fill of the well was removed. Nothing is known of the results of this work, but at the time of the current watching brief, a circular hole c 2m in diameter with a stone and mortar lining had been exposed.

The watching brief concerned the monitoring of the drilling of the remaining material. The remaining upper fill was a loose, coarse ashy silt, which was removed by hand, extending to 0.8m deep, after which the fill became more stony, and drilling was commenced. The drilling indicated that the lower fill was 0.4m in depth, beyond which the base of the well was encountered. Thus a total depth of c 5.2m from the floor level could be estimated.

Finds include large quantities of burnt and unburnt bone as well as some diagnostic finds from the upper fill; a near-complete clay pipe, a fragment of white tile, and an iron spanner. It would seem likely, therefore, that the well was deliberately backfilled in Victorian times or later.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

G Ewart and D Murray 1997.