Archaeology Notes
Event ID 855371
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/855371
NJ82NE 33.00 88444 28055
NJ82NE 33.01 NJ 885 280 Great Garden
NJ82NE 33.02 NJ 88121 28152 Limekiln
NJ82NE 33.03 NJ 8843 2834 North Mains
NJ82NE 33.04 NJ 8856 2748 South Mains
NJ82NE 33.05 NJ 8846 2812 farmhouse (Museum of Farming Life)
NJ82NE 33.06 NJ 8852 2797 Orchard Cottage
NJ82NE 33.07 NJ 8896 2785 and 8899 2785 South Mains Cottages
NJ82NE 33.08 NJ 8870 2838 North Lodge
NJ82NE 33.09 NJ 8867 2845 Ivy Cottage
NJ82NE 33.10 NJ 8863 2831 Woodlands Cottages
NJ82NE 33.11 NJ 8866 2825 Beechgrove
NJ82NE 33.12 NJ 8808 2817 Woodside Cottage
NJ82NE 33.13 NJ 8845 2812 Well
NJ82NE 33.14 NJ 8880 2822 Smithy House
See also:
NJ82NE 27 NJ c. 885 280 Stone Mould; Coins
NJ82NE 80 NJ 8862 2827 Quarry
NJ82NE 81 NJ 8812 2812 Quarry
NJ82NE 82 NJ 8822 2825 Quarry
Not to be confused with Pitmedden House (NJ 8622 1478) and associated buildings in Dyce parish, for which see NJ81SE 52.00.
(NJ 8844 2805) Pitmedden House (NAT)
OS 6" map, (1959)
A fortified house so much altered as to have little of the early work visible.
N Tranter 1962-70.
The Pantons raised a house here about 1430.
R J Prentice nd.
No external evidence of a castellated structure at Pitmedden House, a modern mansion still occupied. According to a painting in a building in Pitmedden Garden, the house was burned in 1818.
Visited by OS (RL) 6 April 1972.
A fortified house so much altered that there is no external evidence of a castellated structure.
Air photographs: AAS/84/14/S9/1-20, flown 6 September 1984.
[Newspaper references cited].
NMRS, MS/712/80.
NJ 885 280 Comprehensive landscape survey and analysis was undertaken between January and December 2005 of the surviving core of the Pitmedden Estate, extending to selected areas sold to surrounding farms by the NTS in the 1950s.
The principal discovery was that the well-known formal walled garden of c 1675 at the core of the historic estate did not exist in isolation. The present Pitmedden House incorporates fragments of earlier structures, particularly to the N, and the uppermost garden terrace adjacent to the E side of the present house was probably the site of an earlier mansion that itself likely incorporated predecessor structures. The early complex was found from contemporary
accounts to have been burnt in 1807 (not 1818 as secondary sources have it). A drawing of the ruins in 1838 suggests a U-shaped courtyard open to the W ; this arrangement is now reversed.
On the N side of the house an existing court of offices was recognised to be of early date (late 17th or early 18th century); this includes a stable to the NW and a single-storeyed cottage to the NE, the latter subsequently given an additional storey. Between these two buildings was a flanking wall and gateway. A wall seems likely to have extended S from the SE corner of the cottage to close off the court, meeting the N side of the lost main house. It is possible
that the early cottage had been a gardener's house.
Outwith the main walled garden, the remains of a very extensive network of early drystone enclosure walls, laid out on a rectilinear grid with the walled garden at the centre, were identified and mapped (both by fieldwalking and map-regression exercises). These early walls, which were of exceptionally fine construction, were respected and often cut by all other features in the landscape ; quarries, turnpike roads, etc. On the basis of such evidence, the enclosure network was deduced to date close to the period of construction of the walled garden itself. The early walls form a
network of enclosures very suggestive of the formal laying-out of a small estate as described in contemporary treatises and following contemporary Continental practices.
Notably idiosyncratic details of the two early garden pavilions ; rusticated window surrounds and flat ogee lintels - were found, in common with similar details at the late 17th-century Hatton House terraced garden, to the W of Edinburgh. There can be little doubt that the same hand was involved in their construction.
The monumental E entrance of the walled garden seems not to be original to its present location. These may have been the gates at the W side of the original mansion court and are very similar to those shown in the 1830s drawing. The house was rebuilt in the 1850s and the gate piers relocated. The early estate appears to have evolved with additional plantings and other features in the 18th century and, in particular, the early 19th century. The latter was in large part in response to the layingout of turnpike roads that converged upon and cut through the Pitmedden Estate ; the modern B9000 (in 1805), B999 (in 1825) and the A920 (early 19th century). Many of the existing plantings, shelter-belts and drives appear to date from this time, as do most of the secondary estate buildings, farms and outlying field walls.
Sponsor: NTS.
T Addyman 2005.
NJ 8844 2805 In response to a proposal to build a new conservatory we undertook an excavation on 28-9 March 2007.
The excavation sought to establish the footprint of a Victorian conservatory that had been formerly attached to the wall of the house and is documented in photographs. The foundations of the 19th-century conservatory were exposed and recorded.
Report deposited with NTS, Aberdeenshire SMR and RCAHMS.
Funder: National Trust for Scotland.
H K Murray and J C Murray, 2007.
