Watching Brief

Date 23 April 2010 - 22 November 2010

Event ID 964916

Category Recording

Type Watching Brief

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/964916

NO 1183 2380 A watching brief was undertaken 23 April–22 November 2010 during development work at Fair Maid’s House, 21 and 23 North Port. The garden area to the rear of the building was lowered to allow the construction of an extension. Medieval pottery and animal bones, including the spine of a cow, were recovered from a garden soil that sealed a linear slot cut into the natural, possibly a boundary on a different alignment to the present boundaries. A single sherd of medieval pottery was recovered from the fill of the slot. The feature had been previously identified during an evaluation of the site by CFA in 2006. A pit lined with a barrel, used as a mortar mixer, was cut into the garden soil. A stone-lined well was also recorded under a boundary wall.

The foundations of the N or back wall of the Fair Maid’s House (23 North Port) were revealed and recorded, as were the foundations of the original back wall of 21 North Port. The foundations of two possible former buttresses were recorded. One was located beneath the present buttress built in 1893–4, the other outside the ground floor window. The present buttress contains two reused stones; a third reused stone was displaced from the buttress during the redevelopment. The insertion of a new access in the 19th-century gable between 21 and 23 North Port uncovered a number of reused stones, none of evidently medieval date.

The digging of two pits for supports for a new stair inside 21 North Port revealed that the building had been built over a garden soil, and a possible gravel path on a similar alignment to the old boundary found outside. Most of the deposits inside the building were post-medieval or recent, including a stone floor, patched with cobbles and bricks. A possible soakaway was cut into a levelling deposit, of clay and stones, which was similar in composition to the original back wall.

Archive: RCAHMS

Funder: Royal Scottish Geographical Society

Alder Archaeology Ltd, 2010