Archaeology Notes
Event ID 711528
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/711528
NT27SE 107.00 28807 70875
NT27SE 107.01 288 702 garden
NT27SE 107.02 28849 70915 Dovecot
(NT 2882 7088) Craigmillar Castle (NR) (remains of)
Chapel (NR) Dovecot (NR)
OS 6"map, (1966).
Craigmillar Castle is fully described, planned and illustrated in the official guidebook and in RCAHMS 1929.
RCAHMS 1929, visited 10 May 1920; W D Simpson 1954.
Trial trenching was carried out in advance of the construction of a new car park for Craigmillar Castle. Nine trenches were excavated, eight of which were archaeologically sterile. A small sandstone quarry was located, backfilled apparently in the 19th century.
Sponsors: City of Edinburgh Council, Millennium Forest for Scotland.
M A Collard 1996.
(NT 2881 7087) A watching brief was undertaken during the excavation of an electricity trench outside Craigmillar Castle. The castle sits on the crest of a ridge, with the ground beginning to fall away some 40m to the E. Bedrock, a red sandstone, appeared through the turf in places.
The short N-S stretch (3.8m long), dug by hand next to the NE tower of the castle, revealed below topsoil a light grey fine silt with much sandstone, mortar, charcoal, china, bottle glass, etc, throughout. This was present for the full c.250mm depth that this stretch was excavated to. The castle wall itself has footings that projected some 150mm out from the wall face, but here bedrock was only c 100mm below the modern ground surface, and the wall lay directly on this.
At the N end of this trench, where it turned E, it was excavated by machine. The westernmost c.14m stretch produced the same silty deposit below topsoil for a depth of 400mm, with the trench bottoming on different material. At one c.9m stretch, a bed of loose pale yellow sandstone rubble may represent a foundation raft for the tower.
The fine grey silt overlying the area is seen as probably representing 19th or 20th-century deposits, probably introduced deliberately as levelling material; the large stones present make an agricultural or garden soil unlikely. The sandstone deposit near the 16th-century NE tower of the castle may relate to this tower, but was not physically related to it in this trench.
A further watching brief was maintained in February 1998 during the excavation of a cable trench in the outer courtyard. All trenching took place over previously disturbed ground.
Sponsor: Historic Scotland
D Stewart 1998
(NT 288 708) A series of nine test trenches was dug in November 2002 in the field to the N of the castle to investigate soil porosity ahead of new drainage for car parking. Nothing of archaeological significance was found.
Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.
Sponsor: HS
G Ewart 2003
