Watching Brief

Date 6 October 2015

Event ID 1034514

Category Recording

Type Watching Brief

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1034514

Under the terms of its PIC contract with Historic Environment Scotland, Kirkdale Archaeology was asked to carry out an archaeological watching brief at Dunstaffnage Castle during the removal of an existing sign (DSN021) in the castle courtyard, and the excavation of a shallow trench to install a new interpretation panel (DSN01) next to the ticket office in the castle grounds.

The excavations at the ticket office for DSN01 showed that the ground had been made-up relatively recently. This may be due to the re-direction of the path leading to the ticket office from the road to the castle. The current arrangement can be seen on the 6 inch : 1 mile Ordnance Survey map of 1959. This can be contrasted with the arrangement shown on the 1899 Ordnance Survey map (Fig. 3) where the path widens to the west of the ticket office. The re-arrangement of the paths here (probably during the early-to-mid-20th century) may account for the landscaping/make-up (103) encountered in Trench 1. Although nothing of particular archaeological interest was revealed during the works, the castle and its surroundings must be considered to be of high archaeological potential and any future ground-breaking work should be similarly accompanied by an archaeological watching brief.

G Ewart 2015

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

Kirkdale Archaeology