Excavation

Date 28 January 1993 - 5 February 1993

Event ID 1084845

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1084845

Installation of electric cables for floodlighting involved the excavation of 103m of cable trench on Castle Green and 31m in the courtyard. The trenches were 30cm wide at ground level and narrowed to 15cm to 25cm in the bottom; they varied in depth from 30cm to 50cm.

The Castle Green trenches showed extensive make-up/terracing deposits associated with the 1860s refortification of the site and 20th-century landscaping. The mound on which the 19th-century castle sits is built up of quarried sandstone and some revetting of the bedrock was seen. To the E of the ramp, the remains of a rubble-filled bunker were found on the site of the dynamo and engine rooms. A corner of the foundations/roof of another bunker was also seen at the N end of the ramp, and a gravel path crosses eastern Castle Green N to S.

Inside the courtyard, the foundations of a 19th-century guardhouse were revealed and a substantial 2m-thick wall running NE to SW; this may represent the remains of a mid-16th-century angled tower known to have stood in this area. The majority of courtyard deposits were make-up for the battery and showed frequent re-surfacing of the courtyard.

F M C Baker 1993

Sponsor: Tayside Enterprise

Kirkdale Archaeology