Beith, 24, 26, 28 The Cross

NS35SW 30 34838 53944

NS 348 539 Building recording and archaeological monitoring were undertaken during the stripping out and refurbishment of five town properties.

24-28 The Cross. A late 18th-century building of two storeys and a loft, with timpany gable on the frontage. Shop properties with a central passage leading to upper floor accommodation. Some well-preserved interior features, wall finishes, etc. There is a 19th-century rear extension to the NW. Sub-floor excavations within the southern shop interior revealed the remains of a predecessor structure constructed with clay-bonded cobble walls, parts of which were revealed below the line of the existing frontage to the E and S. The rear W wall of the structure is now lost. Occupation levels within produced a range of early to mid-18th-century artefacts. Part of a curbed stone-lined hearth survived. These early structural remains appear to date to the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsor: Cunninghame Housing Association Ltd.

T Addyman 2003

Archaeological Watching Brief and Historic Building Survey at 20 - 32 The Cross and 2 - 8 Eglinton Street. The standing buildings that lie within the Beith Town Cross site consist of five historic properties of widely varying age, character and state of preservation. Although the evidence of the interiors of these buildings is now largely lost or subsumed it is however preserved for future generations in the form of the present record and report.

Addyman Archaeology 2004