Archaeology Notes

Event ID 854727

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/854727

NT58SW 17.00 50558 84114

(NT 5056 8412) Archerfield (NAT)

OS 6" map (1968)

NT58SW 17.01 NT 5022 8409 Walled garden

NT58SW 17.02 NT 51339 84030 East Lodge

NT58SW 17.03 NT 5026 8399 West Approach

NT58SW 17.04 NT 502 839 Summer House

NT58SW 17.05 NT 50043 83839 Gardeners Cottage

See also:

NT48SE 118 NT 49893 83747 Home Farm

NT48SE 119 NT 49841 83461 West Lodge

Location formerly entered as NT 5056 8412.

Archerfield was built about the end of the 17th c by William Nisbet of Dirleton.

J Small 1883

This three storey building is now used as a farm stone. Although in poor condition, the front is generally unaltered.

Visited by OS (JP) 8 July 1975

The shell of Archerfield is still in use as a grain store. Built in the late 17th century, work was carried out on it in 1933, in 1745-6 and from 1754. In 1790 Robert Adam was paid for extensive alterations, though it is stated that repairs and additions went on from 1789 to 1795. The Adam interiors were stripped in 1962. This chronology is probably incomplete. The late 17th century house probably formed three sides of a courtyard open to the E, where the end walls of the wings can still be seen. In the first half of the 18th century the W side took its present form, the two-storey wings and quadrant links were added, and the main block refaced. Robert Adam recast the main rooms. The central extension to the E was already in existence when he started his work.

C McWilliam 1978.

An Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland. Vol 5, 5-9.

Site recorded by GUARD during the Coastal Assessment Survey for Historic Scotland, 'The Firth of Forth from Dunbar to the Coast of Fife' 1996.

NT 5056 8412 A walkover survey of the Archerfield Estate undertaken in December 2004 located designed landscape features varying in their state of preservation: walls, ha-has, areas of tree management, ponds, quarries, trackways, earthworks, a domestic dump, an ice house, tree bowls and a cairn. Most damage was due to the action of trees, either by root action, pushing or tree collapse.

The landscape features identified reflected alterations from the 18th to 20th centuries carried out by various designers.

Archive to be deposited in NMRS.

Sponsor: Archerfield Joint Venture Company.

E Hindmarch 2005

NT 406 841 Due to the proximity of known archaeology and following the results of a Designed Landscape Survey (DES 2005, 50), an archaeological evaluation was carried out by AOC Archaeology Group between January and October 2006 in advance of a golf course development. The evaluation identified the buried remains of walls relating to 18th-century and later landscape division which can be seen to relate to upstanding walls recorded during the Designed Landscape Survey. The evaluation also revealed the remains of buildings and walls.

Subsequent excavation in this area revealed the remains of up to eight buildings and associated field boundaries. At least two settlement phases, separated by layers of wind-blown sand, were observed. What appears to be the earliest phase was dominated by long-house-style buildings, one of which contained stone furniture and had settings within the walls for a possible cruck frame. Later buildings by comparison were much larger with only the foundation courses surviving. All building phases were constructed from clay-bonded rubble stonework. Ceramic finds from the site included white gritty ware and green glazed pottery. Animal bone was also recovered, most of it from overburden, as well as a small assemblage of metalwork.

The excavation was limited in its scope in order to support interpretation of the archaeological remains while preserving in situ the structures beneath the 16th and 17th holes of the proposed golf course.

Archive to be deposited in NMRS.

Sponsor: The Renaissance Golf Club at Archerfield.

Erlend Hindmarch, 2006.