Excavation

Date October 1992 - October 1992

Event ID 560293

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/560293

NS 6274 7284 Excavation in advance of the construction of a water pipe-line found the stone base of the Rampart was partially preserved as a band of cobbles and boulders up to 2.8m wide. No kerbstones were identified. The stone base was bonded and overlain in places by a stiff, pink clay. Very little of the body of the Rampart was preserved in situ - a few individual turfs, recognizable as alternating lamination of dark, humic soil and light grey silty soil, lay within an immediately upon the pink foundation clay. The maximum preserved height of the Rampart was 0.25m.

The Ditch lay c.7.8m to the N of the Rampart remains. It was c.5.8m wide at its surface and attained a maximum depth of c.2.5m, slightly narrower than expected. Its sides sloped down steeply to a squared basal channel measuring c.0.6m wide and c.0.4m deep. Immediately to either side of the Ditch the ground sloped downwards gently towards it, most probable as a result of erosion of subsoil into the Ditch from either side. The uppermost Ditch fills also occupied this wider hollow. The exposure of these deposits following topsoiling initially suggested the Ditch to have a surface width of at least 10m.

The width of the berm can only be estimated due to truncation of the Rampart and erosion of the Ditch to be c. 7m-8m wide.

Palynological evidence from the organic fill of the Ditch has yielded a detailed picture of vegetation change spanning c.600 years immediately post-dating the construction of the Wall.

No structural remains of the Outer Mound were preserved, however, its position appears to have been fossilized as a subsoil impression.

No certain trace of the Military Way was identified. A flat-bottomed ditch identified at the S end of the trench , c.15m S of the Rampart, may be the remains of a ditch flanking this road, although alternatively the feature may be a field boundary or drainage feature of comparatively recent origin.

A Dunwell and G Coles 1998