Excavation

Date 15 February 2006 - 20 February 2006

Event ID 1034207

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1034207

Under the terms of its call-off contract with Historic Scotland, Kirkdale Archaeology was asked to undertake a short period of archaeological monitoring at Elcho Castle while Historic Scotland MCU personnel excavated shallow trenches for services to and from the wooden hut SW of the Custodian’s Cottage. Plans were not available of the existing arrangement of services or of the positioning of the trenches associated with the current work. This meant that several trenches had to be dug to locate the present arrangement of water supply and associated pipes and drains. A total of 28m of trenching was excavated in order to instate the new services.

This area of the castle is of particular interest as it is in the vicinity of the Southeast Tower, which has a projecting stub of wall running W from it. This appears to be the remains of the barmkin of a substantial courtyard across the line of which the trenches would run. There was therefore the possibility of finding in situ masonry associated with this feature. It was already apparent that the area was much disturbed as several water, drainage and electricity services had been installed during the 19th & 20th centuries, while a stone pathway shored with wooden planks had truncated and disturbed the upper deposits in the 20th century.

There were no finds or features of particular archaeological significance during these works. The green glaze pottery is of 16th- to 17th-century date but came from a mixed and/or redeposited context. Trenching failed to reveal any further remains of the E-W barmkin suggested by the stub of wall returning from the SE Tower. Although extensive trenching was undertaken, its depth never exceeded 400mm in the area of the wall line of the barmkin and it only crossed this line in Trenches 1 and 2 and only for 300mm width in each. With the closely cropping bedrock, a modern path, the current arrangement of services replacing a previous arrangement (with their associated ground disturbance) and it is unsurprising that there was no evidence of the courtyard barmkin.

G Ewart 2006

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

Kirkdale Archaeology