Excavation

Date December 2006 - April 2007

Event ID 557978

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/557978

NH 7420 4498 Scheduled monument consent has been granted for various works in the clan graves area at Culloden Battlefield, in advance of a major reinterpretation of the battlefield. Between December 2006 and April 2007 the following work was undertaken by the NTS:

1. Crazy paving inserted in the 1960s or 1970s used to ‘front’ each of the grave markers on the S side of the old road. Most of this paving was removed in the mid-1980s but one area had been left in front of one of the ‘Mixed Clans’ stones. It was agreed that this modern intrusion should be removed to return the area to a semblance of how it would have been when the grave markers were erected in 1880/1881. A 2m by 2.2m zone was marked out. The turf was removed, the Caithness flagstones were recorded and most were taken away, and then the area was turfed with grass from beside the current visitor centre. No artefacts were found. A few flagstones were left in situ but will be removed once the grave marker has been set upright again.

2. In 1983/4 a gravel path had been created across the scheduled site, passing from the Well of the Dead, across the clan graves area and on to the Campbell Stone. At the same time the route of the main road, which also used to cross the area, was moved some 250m Nwards and the old road was broken up and its line grassed over. A review of the footpaths across the battlefield resulted in proposals for re-establishing the

original route of the road as the main footpath, and removing the more recent route. This would return the clan graves area to a semblance of how it would have been in the 1880s. To establish the exact line of the old road the probable line was surveyed onto the ground from details given on the 1:2500 OS map. Two trenches (3 x 1m and 4 x 1m) were then excavated, to confirm the route. One caught the S edge of the road, the other its Northern edge. Most of the tarmac must have been removed when the road was broken up in the 1980s, but the very hardpacked stone/gravel road metalling with bitumen through its surface was still in situ at a depth of only 200mm. The new path that was created in June 2007 used this old road metalling as a foundation, with any earlier road layers remaining untouched below.

Archive to be deposited with NTS SMR and RCAHMS.

Funder: National Trust for Scotland.