Watching Brief

Date 22 April 1999

Event ID 1029955

Category Recording

Type Watching Brief

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1029955

The archaeological work at Holyrood Palace was to investigate the area of ground to be disturbed in the excavations inadvance of the installation of parking meters in the area immediately to the E of the Palace grounds boundary wall.

The deposits encountered in Trenches 1-11 were very similar and the material in the roughly 0.40m in depth removed was basically 0.15m of turf and topsoil [001] over 0.20m of sandy imported material [002] and an unknown depth of grey green gravel [003]/[004].

It may be that [002] only exists in the area investigated, not under the car-park surface, and that it was imported to an area which was always going to be turfed. [003] and [004] were thought to be bedding gravel laid down immediately prior to the construction of the current car park surface. Nothing of archaeological significance was found.