Archaeological Evaluation

Date 24 September 2018 - 12 October 2018

Event ID 1122405

Category Recording

Type Archaeological Evaluation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1122405

An archaeological trial trenching evaluation was carried out in advance of the development of residential flats at the Former Tesco Store and Adjacent Land, Mall Avenue, Musselburgh. The proposed development lies within the area formerly occupied by mid 20th century buildings associated with the Brunton Wireworks. Although this area was considered to be one of reasonable archaeological potential the evidence from this evaluation would suggest that significant disturbance at least to the level of the natural had taken place across the development area prior to the construction of the wireworks. If any archaeological remains had been present they would have potentially been destroyed by this earlier phase of construction. A number of features associated with the wireworks were identified (drainage pipes, creosote soaked timber sleeper beams, brick walls, concrete foundations etc). The only other features were two shallow parallel linear features of undetermined date and function. No evidence for the type of deposit identified in the 1985 intervention was identified; all the deposits identified were recent. It is considered that the intervention in 1993 that identified Medieval deposits must have been restricted to the store site which was immediately to the south of this site as nothing of that nature was identified either.

Information from OASIS ID: cfaarcha1-331552 (M Kirby)