Standing Building Recording

Date January 2006

Event ID 550656

Category Recording

Type Standing Building Recording

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/550656

NJ 215 630 A standing building recording exercise and subsequent watching brief in January 2006 on Elgin swimming baths and an adjacent house, named North View, was undertaken in advance of demolition works. The swimming baths were originally constructed in 1930, on the site of, and partially incorporating, a former slaughterhouse. The baths had been substantially extended in 1963-5, with the addition of a new Modernist-style wing, housing a children's' pool, changing rooms and other facilities. North View was an early 19th-century building, constructed about the same time as Trinity Place (formerly North Street) but extensively remodelled during the Victorian era, which included a stable block and outbuilding within its curtilage. Only external shots of North View were taken, since the building was deemed unsafe to enter.

Six test pits over the footprint of the new build foundations were examined and recorded. In general these revealed parts of the foundations for the recently demolished North View and its garden, the Munro Pool and the 1960s Municipal Swimming Baths. A garden soil pre-dating these 19th- and 20th-century buildings was also found towards the SW of the site. No dating evidence was recovered from the garden soil but it is probable that the SW area of the site was under cultivation prior to the building of N View, constructed by 1822. Natural deposits were variable; silty clay, clay, sand and gravel. No features representing occupation of the site before its 19th-century development were identified and nothing of archaeological significance was found.

Report lodged with NMRS.

Sponsor: Aldi Stores Ltd.

D Hind and R Cachart 2006