Watching Brief

Date 13 April 2000 - 15 April 2000

Event ID 1030758

Category Recording

Type Watching Brief

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1030758

A watching brief was carried out at Melrose Abbey (NMRS NT53SW 30)while Historic Scotland personnel carried out a programme of cable trenching. The work consisted of excavating a narrow trench 220mm wide and 300mm deep over a distance of 91.4m. The trench consisted of two sections, a section external to the abbey church with a length of 55.4m, and a section within the abbey church with a length of 36m. The whole of the trench was hand dug, with archaeological monitoring covering the section of excavations within the church. The section of trench outside the church had already been excavated prior to the arrival of the supervising archaeologist but could still be examined for exposed structural elements.

It is known that the interior of the church was extensively cleared and landscaped in 1923, and presumably much of the levelling material located in the trench sections would date from that period. A soil layer located throughout the church might be an early natural accumulation of soil over a thin layer of demolition debris, which was in turn sealed over in the 1920s by red sandstone waste material. The absence of graves across most of the church may simply be due to the shallowness of the trench cut assuming the interior of the church was used as a place of inhumation.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

D Stewart 2000

Kirkdale Archaeology