Watching Brief

Date 2 December 1997 - 9 December 1997

Event ID 1028074

Category Recording

Type Watching Brief

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1028074

Kirkdale Archaeology were asked to maintain a watching brief at Fort George during work to dig a trench for an electricity cable outside the casemates in the NE corner of the fort. This work involved removal of the concrete pathway outside the casemates, and the excavation of the trench by machine, while the digging inside the casemates, and at the E end of the pathway (where it runs underneath an access ramp to the wallhead) was done by hand. The casemates are stone built rooms, buried under the rampart of the fort, to provide shelter during an artillery barrage. They were built between 1749 and 1762, with each one being designed to hold 40 men. They are built of roughly faced red and yellow sandstone, with finer work around the doors and windows.

Dateable finds were not recovered from any contexts, except the sand directly below the present concrete surface, which is presumably relatively recent. While many hand made bricks, or fragments thereof, were noted, these are of little use in dating any of the structures located, as the squad informed me that there still are numerous of these bricks lying around, and they get built into work that they do today. The presence of two soakaways situated relatively close to each other hints that they were probably constructed at different times, although their close similarity in construction indicates a relationship, quite probably that they are both of military design. The drain that ran out of one casemate may once have been a more common feature, as this casemate has a dirt floor, unlike the others which were dug into, which had concrete floors, which will have involved the removal of deposits within the casemates, before laying the floor. This may well have been an original feature, although due to the generally disturbed nature of the site this could not be accurately determined. Some confidence can be attached to the interpretation of the cut noted apparently running under the casemates, even though this feature was not bottomed. The fact that it ran tight against the side of the casemates makes it very unlikely that this feature could post date their construction, so any function other than being a construction cut seems improbable. This feature therefore can reasonably be dated to the construction of the casemates, between 1749 and 1762. This in turn makes it seem highly probable that the sand it was cut through is indeed the natural beach material, although this

deposit may have been partially quarried away. Indeed the black, organic look to the fill of the construction trench, if simply redeposited material, would indicate that there was originally a topsoil covering the sand here.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

D Murray 1998

Kirkdale Archaeology