Watching Brief

Date 2000

Event ID 928147

Category Recording

Type Watching Brief

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/928147

A watching brief by SUAT Ltd in 2000 on the replacement of a flower bed along the north side of the graveyard revealed fragments of human bone, which were reburied on site, as well as modern ceramic bottles and clay pipe stems. Foundations of a former lavatory and telephone box (both of 1960's OS maps) were found.

In the border east of the north gate headstones were still in place, indicating that this area has remained undisturbed, except for planting, since the burial ground went out of use in 1836. More bone fragments were encountered in this area than on the west side because the graveyard soil here had not been sealed by a gravel pathway.

On the west side of the north gate the burial ground had been largely sealed by a former gravel pathway and make up, except at the extreme north end.

In recent times two features had been cut through the original wall. These are shown on the 1960's Ordnance Survey maps as a lavatory on the west side of the gate where the brick wall was found and further to the west, a telephone box at the location of the concrete base or plinth. The present border here had been established over the old gravel pathway, and the new cassie set pathway laid out about 1984.

Because of the shallowness of the ground preparation no archaeological horizons relating to the Greyfriar's friar were encountered and no in situ burials were disturbed.

Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust. 2000. A Watching Brief at the Howff, Dundee.