South Ronaldsay, St Margaret's Hope, General

ND 44568 93492 An archaeological watching brief was undertaken during water mains replacement works in St Margaret's Hope. All the excavations were within existing highways.

The watching brief provided a body of evidence which effectively established the general nature of the underlying deposits, indicating that much of the earlier development of the town took place on the lower ground close to the shoreline. The deposits exposed also showed that Front Road was built upon an area of reclaimed land, formed by dumped material, which extended the shoreline towards deeper water. These works were undertaken prior to the late nineteenth century.

The watching brief did indicate the potential for archaeological material to survive across the Site in isolated areas undisturbed by later activity. A number of culverts were exposed which related to the discharging of surface and domestic water into the sea. The presence of a large canalised watercourse running along the length of Cromarty Square was indicated by historic maps, though no evidence for this structure was identified during the archaeological monitoring. The works did identify two potential structures underlying Front Road which may relate to the town’s original seafront, prior to the dumping of material as part of the land reclamation scheme.

The Site is situated in St. Margaret’s Hope along Pier Road, Cromarty Square, Back Road and Front Road between National Grid references (NGR) ND 44539 93612, ND 44568 93492, ND 44804 93556 and ND 44854 93552. The Site comprises these highways within the town.

The current scheme of archaeological works represented the first scheme of archaeological monitoring to be undertaken along the shoreline underlying the built environment within St Margaret’s Hope. The watching brief provided a body of evidence which effectively established the general nature of these underlying deposits, but provided very little effective evidence of specific structures, activity or date. The watching brief did indicate, however, the potential for archaeological material to survive, though its survival is likely to be fragmentary, in isolated pockets, due to the extensive disturbance beneath the existing highway which has taken place over recent years.

Information from Oasis ID: orkneyre1-243332 (S. Bell) March 2016

Front Road: ND 44620 93569 to ND 44795 93554

Occasional sherds of Post-Medieval pottery and fragments of clay tobacco pipe stems were present within this deposit.

Structure 1006 was one of a series of eight stone-built culverts seen at fairly regular intervals along the excavated trench. These were all orientated north-south and were constructed of stone capping stones across parallel sides of small stone fragments, laid to create fairly regular interior faces.

A stone-built linear structure 1010, orientated north-south, was exposed at the west edge of the junction of Front Road and the unnamed highway linking it with Back Road.

Back Road: ND 44857 93526 to ND 44759 93490

Sherds of post-medieval pottery and a mammalian metapodial were recovered from deposit 2005. A stone-built culvert 2008 was exposed at NGR ND 44647 93552 within deposit 2005. This was orientated northwest-southeast and was identical in construction to those seen on Front Road.

Pier Road/ Cromarty Square: ND 44570 93493 to ND 44542 93607

A culvert 3006 was exposed...Culverts 3007 and 3011, were exposed further to the north of 3006. On the bend of the Cromarty Square/ Pier Road junction two further culverts, 3017 and 3018, were exposed.

Information from Oasis ID: orkneyre1-243332 (S. Bell) March 2016

Test Pit A: ND 44784 93557

Test Pit B: ND 44852 93587

An additional two test pits were excavated in May 2015, designated Test-Pit A and Test-Pit B. These were excavated in order to collect further soil samples from a depth of 1.2mBGL and were hand-excavated in order to ensure that the hydrocarbon content identified in a number of the previous samples was not the result of contamination from the mechanical excavator.

Sherds of Post-medieval/ Modern pottery were recovered.

No archaeological significant features were identified in any of the hand-excavated test pits.

Information from Oasis ID: orkneyre1-243332 (S. Bell) March 2016

Test Pit 1: ND 44744 93560

Test Pit 2: ND 44965 93556

Test Pit 3: ND 44677 93568

Test Pit 4: ND 44624 93577

Test Pit 5: ND 44636 93556

A series of five test pits, numbered TP1 to TP5, were excavated in March 2015. The purpose of these was to collect soil samples at a depth of 1.2m below the current ground level (BGL) to test for contamination.

A linear structure 506 was identified at 0.38mBGL within [TP5]. The structure consisted of a single line of dressed stone blocks orientated east-west, and protruding from the southfacing section of TP5 (Plate 2). Structure 506 was exposed in plan only and, as the intention was to retrieve soil samples from a greater depth, the stones were left in-situ and excavation continued to the south of the constituents. It was not possible, therefore, to examine the structure in detail, though 506 appeared to consist of at least two stone constituents, neither of which appeared to have been exposed along their entire length.

No archaeological significant material was identified in, or recovered from, any of the machine excavated test pits.

Information from Oasis ID: orkneyre1-243332 (S. Bell) March 2016