Edinburgh, Leith, Queen Charlotte Street, General

Addyman Archaeology was contracted by Scotland Gas Networks (contact, Ian Stewart, Team Manager) to perform archaeological watching briefs during trenching for the replacement of the gas mains along both Queen Charlotte Street and Links Lane, this in advance of the ongoing construction of the Edinburgh Tramway in Leith.

The requirement for a watching brief was imposed upon the gas main replacement works by the City of Edinburgh Council Archaeology Service (contact, John Lawson). The watching brief was undertaken in two stages. The first stage involved excavations at Queen Charlotte Street undertaken by Sarah Phillips, and supported by Kenneth Macfadyen and Claire Holland, from the 28th January to the end of February. The second stage involved further excavation works at Links Lane. This watching brief was undertaken by Claire Holland, supported and supervised by Sarah Phillips, from the 27th February to the 20th March.

Relatively little of archaeological significance was found during either watching briefs. In all areas the ground has been considerably disturbed by a variety of more and less recent service works. Links Lane in particular has little of interest and nearly all trenches reached a natural subsoil horizon, light yellow coastal sand, during excavation. It has however been noted that the conclusions for this section of the work may have been mis-interpreted and that the deposits related to relatively recent services works may actually relate to the 16th century defences of Leith or the dismantling of the same. Because of the frequency of services encountered within an extremely narrow trench no final conclusion could be made either way without further investigation. It would be advised that any other works that will be undertaken, as part of the proposed tramway construction or otherwise, within the vicinity of this trench be made aware of the potential and therefore may be able to inform the findings of this report to draw a final conclusion.

Queen Charlotte Street was somewhat more interesting and certainly there is evidence to suggest, if not found, that there is potential for the survival of the remains of the Leith defences in that area - towards the W end of the street at its junction with Constitution Street. This finding reinforces the need for precaution should further works proceed in this area, in particular if they are to go deeper than 1m below the current ground surface.

Information from Addyman Archaeology