Watching Brief

Date November 2000

Event ID 928149

Category Recording

Type Watching Brief

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/928149

During a watching brief by SUAT Ltd on a service trench on the south side of St Mary's Tower in 2000, three north-south aligned walls were noted, and some disarticulated human bones were disturbed. Two of the walls were probably former boundaries around the church dating to the 19th century and the 1960's. The bones were reburied on site.

The excavation for the required sewer pipe ran along the south side of the steeple 6.25m out from the steeple's south wall.

The excavated trench was 16.40m in length, a maximum of 0.90m deep and 0.25m wide at the base. It sloped down to thes west and ran from a trap in the pathway beside the church to the west boundary retaining wall.

At the east end of the trench were large fragments of mortared stonework that had been removed to accommodate the pipe trench. These remains were considered to be of a wall. At 8.60m from the east end of the trench were the remains of another wall, 0.50m wide and visible to a height of 0.30m. At 12.1m from the east end of the trench, a third wall was found measuring 0.45m high and 0.40m wide and which was not bottomed. All the walls were aligned north to south.

The function of the eastern most wall is uncertain, it may have been part of the 19th century landscaping and rebuilding work undertaken after a disastrous fire in 1841 destroyed the church. The middle wall is considered to be the revetting wall around the south side of the church on the east side of School Wynd as shown on the first edition ordnance survey map (1860's) which remained in place until the 1960's when the first Overgate shoppiung centre was built. The western most wall in the trench was the revetting wall built for the 1960's Overgate Centre. The west end of the trench was very close to the latest revetting wall built for the 2nd Overgate shopping centre which opened in 2000.

In section the stratigraphy revealed by the trench cut consisted of 0.30m turf and topsoil over raised beach gravel deposits. The gravel deposits at the bottom of the trench contained abundant disarticulated human bone indicating that the disturbed upper level of the medieval burial ground had been reached. The fragments of human bones were re-interred in the trench.

Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust. 2000. Watching Brief on Pipe Trench at Steeple Church Dundee