Excavation

Date 21 March 2015 - 28 November 2015

Event ID 1025858

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1025858

NT 31600 31400 An excavation programme continued, 21 March 2015 – 28 November 2015, at Shootinglee. The strategy was to complete the excavation of the 17th-century building in Trench 2 to see if it was one phase of construction and to extend Trench 1 to try and find out the function of the paved area uncovered in the initial excavation. Additional questions about the origins of the site have arisen from the oven under the Building 1 that has been radiocarbon dated to the later 15th or early 16th century, and the pottery finds suggesting medieval occupation of the site. With this in mind, it was decided to excavate the building at the other end of the row of five buildings that make-up the settlement, henceforward called Building 2, to see if it was of earlier date, as it has a slightly different alignment to the rest of the row. Several small trenches (Trenches 3-6) were opened on the house platform due to the tree cover on the site which inhibited the opening of a single open area.

Trench 1 was extended 4m to the SE, and 1m to the NE and SW respectively. This revealed a paved floor c2.5m across and a partly robbed stone wall along its SE edge, parallel to that on the NW. This suggests an outbuilding either used for storage such as a barn or, perhaps, a byre. A piece of post-medieval slipware was found in the interstices of the paving. The structure was built over a silty soil, which was almost free of any finds, but included charcoal fragments suggesting a cultivated soil and an occasional medieval pot sherd.

In Trench 2, the remainder of the N wall of Building 1 was excavated, revealing that it abutted the revetment wall along the back of the house-platform. The revetment wall was itself coeval with the paving on the exterior to the N, all of which suggests that the platform, N building wall and external paving were part of the same period of construction, even if there was a sequence in the order of construction. In the N baulk section, what appeared to be paved stones on an E/W alignment may be the wall of another structure that lies outside the trench.

Four trenches were opened up to explore the house platform at the N end of the row, Building 2. Only topsoil and tumble were removed during this season. This revealed a building of at least two phases. The main structure is rectangular and measures c10m from N to S by 7.2m transversely over claybonded stone walls, 1.2–1.4m in thickness, still standing to c1m in height at the N end. With most of the wall-face on the W side uncovered and most of the N wall, apart from a baulk between Trenches 3 and 4, no entrance has yet been found. Trench 5 was opened to examine a possible wall at the S end, this showed that it was a slightly thinner wall, c1.1m thick, but of similar construction. This wall is part of a narrower structure that appears to be an extension to Building 2, extending 5m from N to S by 6.2m in breadth with a rounded external SE corner that postdates a cobbled surface. Its E and W walls have been largely robbed of stone. Both the interiors of the main structure and the outshot are paved with flat stones, and there are traces of burning on the paving beside the two end walls, suggesting fireplaces. Partial robbing of the floor of the main building in Trench 3 revealed traces of an earlier phase of flooring. A Bellarmine pot sherd, clay pipe and vessel glass suggest the building was abandoned in the 17th or early 18th century.

Trench 6, designed to explore the join between the two structures, shows a greater degree of robbing than at the N end, and an E/W drain under the tumble which contained an unabraided piece of well-fired late-medieval pottery in its upper fill.

The size and construction of the main part of Building 2 compares with peel houses like Kilnsike or Mervinslaw in Southdean parish.

Archive: National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE) intended

Funder: Scottish Borders Council

Website: www.peeblesarchsoc.org.uk

Joyce Durham and Piers Dixon – Peeblesshire Archaeological Society/Historic Environment Scotland

(Source: DES, Volume 16)