St Andrews, The Shore, Fisherman's Store

An archaeological evaluation was undertaken on the site of a proposed café development on ‘The Shore’ at St Andrews harbour. The project was commissioned by Moray Royles of CiAO, architects, on behalf of their client Scottish Enterprise, Fife.

The development area lies immediately to the east of the abbey precinct wall and west of the inner harbour of St Andrews at NGR NO 5158 1654.

The evaluation was carried out by two archaeologists from SUAT on the 29th and 30th October 2001. Two trenches (Trench 1 measuring 6.6 m x up to 2.4 m and Trench 2 measuring 5 m x 2.2 m) both oriented roughly E-W, perpendicular to the abbey wall, were excavated by machine under archaeological supervision. These trenches were stepped in due to their depth (a maximum of around 3 m). Trench 1 was excavated to natural clay deposits, while Trench 2 was excavated to the level of standing water. Clay was also located at the base of this trench, probably representing natural deposits. Unfortunately the existence of 19th and 20th century brick and concrete structures, and the depth of the trenches led to the natural clay being exposed in only small sondages (c 0.9 x 1.5 m). The character, extent, depth and date of the deposits and structures encountered were recorded by an archaeologist.

The site contained no material of archaeological significance. Remains of brick and concrete structures, probably associated with a 19th or 20th century gasworks, were visible above natural deposits, and it seems likely that any archaeological remains will have been removed during the construction of these structures. Overlying these were various infilling deposits and a deep topsoil deposit, associated with recent (20th century) landscaping of the area. The only area in which archaeologically significant remains might still remain is under the disturbed cobble surface (011) to the east of Trench 1, beyond the concrete structure.