Archaeology Notes

Event ID 812555

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/812555

NS20SW 35 23126 09845

See also Culzean Castle

NS20NW 112 Sundial

NS 231 098 Excavation in February 1999 and monitoring in March 2000 revealed that the former vine house had two principal phases:

Phase 1: c 1790, associated with Robert Adam's redevelopment of Culzean. Identified remains of the original vine house consist of the heated wall - containing a series of horizontal flues; the piers of the front wall of the vine house; parts of a brick flue system connected to the heated wall running into the interior of the glassed structure. Recovered architectural fragments relating to this include a number of stone bases for cast-iron supporting piers. The remains of a central structure, perhaps an orangery, were also identified. These consisted of an entrance and bulls-eye window above, within the heated wall, some foundation remains and a number of architectural fragments, including parts of a probable cornice and a corbel, suggesting that the structure had been partly built of stone.

Phase 2: mid-19th-century redesign of the vine house. This involved the removal of the original centrepiece; the extension of the range to the S; and, to maintain symmetry, the formation of a new central gabled glassed structure off-set from the position of its predecessor. The redesigned glass house was sub-divided by glassed cross-walls into six units, the soil preparation varying within each according to the grape variety grown.

A detailed analysis was undertaken of a sample area of the vinery, consisting of a 5 x 7m transverse trench running from the heated wall to the dwarf wall defining the bed to the exterior of the glass house to the E. This revealed a most complex and sophisticated preparation consisting of: a carefully prepared base gently sloping down to the E; a solum level of poured tar; and a complex system of stone-lined 'air drains' leading from heated iron water pipes running within the glass house to the exterior. Once outside, the air drains branched into a series of cross-drains and loose drystone capped by a level of stone slabs. The drains were vented externally to allow control of air flowing into the interior. Overlying soil preparation externally included a bed of charcoal (mussel elsewhere), humic soil 'sweetened' with crushed lime mortar and horse bone throughout. Localised dense concentrations of horse bone at the foot of the glass house piers corresponded to the planting point of the vine bole before being trained back into the interior of the glass house. (Elsewhere the vines appear to have been planted internally and the spaces between the piers blocked with brick). Internally a scattering of mussel underlay a build-up of silty soil within which was created an upper air duct formed of terracotta pipes.

Nothing remained of the upper structure of the glass house. The water pipes were heated by convection from semi-subterranean boilers within a range of lean-to outhouses on the W side of the heated wall, now gone. The base of a slate-lined water tank was also revealed.

The glass house was removed in c 1950 following a period of dereliction.

Sponsor: National Trust for Scotland.

T Addyman 2000