Excavation

Date October 2003

Event ID 577474

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/577474

NJ 723 127 In order to inform a garden restoration project in which much of the original path system of the walled garden is to be restored, a small trench was excavated in October 2003 across the line of a former path. This was once the eastern arm of a centrally planned cross pattern, now grassed over, which first appears on a plan of the garden in 1816 and most likely dates to its inception in about 1794-9. The central cross appears to have been removed in the 1960s/early 1970s.

The excavation revealed a series of path surface layers immediately below the turf and topsoil, forming a deposit ranging from 8-18cm in depth and about 130-140cm across. Each surface was composed of the same loamy sand, very similar to the natural subsoil and most probably from a source on the Castle Fraser Estate. The original path surface lay directly over the pre-garden ploughsoil, with no base layer of coarser material or metalling.

Archive to be deposited in NTS SMR.

Sponsor: NTS.

S M Fraser 2003