Watching Brief

Date 1 January 2011 - 6 April 2011

Event ID 933666

Category Recording

Type Watching Brief

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/933666

NJ 9424 0653 (centred on) Conversion of Marischal College into the new headquarters of Aberdeen City Council has included a range of archaeological work, and the final stages of this work were carried out 1 January–6 April 2011. A watching brief undertaken during groundwork associated with excavations of the Broad Street frontage of the building, drainage excavations to the W, and new sewage installations behind the building recorded 29 features and 6 finds.

The most recent features were an area of wooden cassies and a low boundary wall, which probably dated to the redesigning of Marischal College frontage in the early 20th century. A brick-built rectangular structure was identified as a personnel access chamber or manhole cover of probable Victorian date. Walls, located to the rear of the building, must have related to tenement buildings that are depicted on the OS map of 1865, but not seen on Milne’s Plan of 1789. A construction date of between 1789 and 1865 ties in neatly with glass and jar finds recovered during excavations. The majority of the features (seven) located in the Broad Street frontage area were walls and drains associated with the cellars of tenement buildings. These were depicted on Milne’s Plan of 1789 but not on Patterson’s earlier plan of 1746, indicating that these features date from somewhere between 1746 and 1789, although later alterations may have occurred. The earliest deposits were recorded from the drainage excavations on Littlejohn Street, and it is likely that the organic material was from part of a medieval midden known to exist in this area.

Archive: Aberdeen City Council

Funder: Aberdeen City Council

Aberdeen City Council Art Gallery and Museum Service, 2011

Information also reported in Oasis (aberdeen3-113456) 11 November 2011