Archaeology Notes

Event ID 708327

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/708327

NS97NE 1 957 784

(NS 9592 7845) Stone Coffins containing human remains found here in 1838 and 1852 (NAT)

OS 6" map (1860)

A number of stone coffins were found when improvements were taking place on the Edinburgh - Glasgow road. They have also been discovered at a more recent date by workmen digging for gravel in the adjacent gravel pit. All these coffins contained human remains.

Name Book 1860.

No further information.

Visited by OS (FDC) 15 June 1950.

At least three long cists have been exposed by weathering in the N face of the quarry at NS 957 784. Two were examined on 24th July 1973; they were slab-built, one being also paved, and each held an extended inhumation. Some 3m of modern overburden covers the site at present. (Two cists were at NS 9575 7841, and the third at NS 9576 7840). Information from J Close-Brooks letter and 25" plan, 25 July 1973.

A further two long cists were exposed by weathering in the N face of the quarry; one contained a child, the other an extended inhumation.

J J Walker 1974.

'A further long cist was exposed by weathering in the N face of the sand quarry, but a collapse in the quarry face destroyed it before examination could take place.'

J J Walker 1976.

'Another cist has been increasingly exposed in the N face of the quarry since the winter of 1979. On recent examination it measured 1.32m in length (incomplete) by 0.44m, was slab built and paved, and contained an extended inhumation of which only the skull was recovered. Further collapse of the quarry face will destroy the cist.'

L F Main and J F Murray 1980.