Shootinglee

NT 3156 3136 (centred on) A ground resistance survey was carried out on 9 June 2012 on a former hunting lodge and farm owned by the Earls of Traquair. The farm was last occupied in 1848. Survey results revealed a series of interlinking higher resistance linear anomalies which could represent wall foundations of a set of N–S aligned features c110m in length. The survey area was truncated by a dry stone boundary wall to the E, beyond which is now forest. To the N of the survey area and on the forest side of the boundary wall there were visible remains of structures which aligned with the survey results.

Archive: RCAHMS and Scottish Borders SMR (intended)

Funder: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society and EAFS

Ian Hawkins, Edinburgh Archaeological Field Society

Donald Matthews,

2012

NT 3160 3140 (centred on) A programme of archaeological work was begun at Shootinglee in March 2012. The work included a survey carried out by EAFS, a plane table plan and a trial trench from which medieval pottery was retrieved. Archival sources name Shootinglee as a forest stead within the Ettrick Forest.

Archive: RCAHMS and Scottish Borders SMR (intended)

Funder: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

Joyce Durham, Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

2012

NT 3160 3140 (centred on) A programme of archaeological work was continued at Shootinglee, 20 April – 30 Nov 2014. From archival sources it is known that Shootinglee was a steading within Ettrick Forest and was of some importance for a short time in the 15th century, being the administrative centre of a ward or division of the forest.

The site lies on the E of the Newhall Burn; it is split into two parts by a dry stone wall to the W of which is a pasture field and to the E a conifer plantation. Several features were visible to the W including the footings of at least one small building and several earthen banked enclosures, one of

which has been trial trenched and interpreted as a garden plot (DES 2012,166). Within the forest, planted in 1976, there are the footings of a row of five buildings, all badly damaged by forest ploughing. The southernmost of these is currently being excavated.

NT 31597 31299 The site of the southernmost building has been cut into the break of slope at the foot of a steep W-facing, scree-covered hillside, and levelled off to form a terrace on which the building was constructed. Removal of the overburden of tumble and loose soil revealed the stone and turf walls of a building measuring 11.5 x 4m internally.

The E wall, built into the hillside, has a single inner skin, the back of which has been packed with stones from the hillside. The N wall stands to two courses in height and is c0.7m wide. Outside this wall there is paving with a gap in the middle, possibly a sump for an internal drain. The W wall is

c0.9m wide at the N end and preserves a covering of redbrown silt, probably the residue of the turf superstructure, but is dilapidated at the S end. There is a central hearth in the S end and a probable entrance slightly off centre in the W wall. Forest ploughing has unfortunately considerably

distorted the archaeology in many places.

The N end of the structure has seen later reuse. During the most recent phase the floor level was raised c150–200mm with a layer of earth and stone. This extended over about half the width of the original building and over part of the N wall, suggesting post-occupation use. Removal of these

features revealed an area of paving, consisting of large stones and a central drain.

Finds have included iron objects, nails, glass and clay pipe stems, along with two sherds of medieval pottery. Samples of charcoal have been collected from strategic places and will be sent for radiocarbon dating.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended)

Funder: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

Joyce Durham and Piers Dixon - Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

(Source: DES)

NT 31566 31383 (centred on) A ground resistance survey was carried out on October 2014 on a former hunting lodge and farm owned by the Earls of Traquair. Twelve 20x20 grids were surveyed in June 2012, extended by a further four in October 2014. The initial survey recorded small interconnected higher resistance anomalies extending for c. 110 metres from S to N along the line of the later E boundary wall of a conifer plantation which has divided the site. The follow-up survey to the N showed further higher resistances close to the wall line.

Archive: RCAHMS and Scottish Borders SMR (intended)

Funder: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society and EAFS

NT 31600 31400 An excavation programme continued, 21 March 2015 – 28 November 2015, at Shootinglee. The strategy was to complete the excavation of the 17th-century building in Trench 2 to see if it was one phase of construction and to extend Trench 1 to try and find out the function of the paved area uncovered in the initial excavation. Additional questions about the origins of the site have arisen from the oven under the Building 1 that has been radiocarbon dated to the later 15th or early 16th century, and the pottery finds suggesting medieval occupation of the site. With this in mind, it was decided to excavate the building at the other end of the row of five buildings that make-up the settlement, henceforward called Building 2, to see if it was of earlier date, as it has a slightly different alignment to the rest of the row. Several small trenches (Trenches 3-6) were opened on the house platform due to the tree cover on the site which inhibited the opening of a single open area.

Trench 1 was extended 4m to the SE, and 1m to the NE and SW respectively. This revealed a paved floor c2.5m across and a partly robbed stone wall along its SE edge, parallel to that on the NW. This suggests an outbuilding either used for storage such as a barn or, perhaps, a byre. A piece of post-medieval slipware was found in the interstices of the paving. The structure was built over a silty soil, which was almost free of any finds, but included charcoal fragments suggesting a cultivated soil and an occasional medieval pot sherd.

In Trench 2, the remainder of the N wall of Building 1 was excavated, revealing that it abutted the revetment wall along the back of the house-platform. The revetment wall was itself coeval with the paving on the exterior to the N, all of which suggests that the platform, N building wall and external paving were part of the same period of construction, even if there was a sequence in the order of construction. In the N baulk section, what appeared to be paved stones on an E/W alignment may be the wall of another structure that lies outside the trench.

Four trenches were opened up to explore the house platform at the N end of the row, Building 2. Only topsoil and tumble were removed during this season. This revealed a building of at least two phases. The main structure is rectangular and measures c10m from N to S by 7.2m transversely over claybonded stone walls, 1.2–1.4m in thickness, still standing to c1m in height at the N end. With most of the wall-face on the W side uncovered and most of the N wall, apart from a baulk between Trenches 3 and 4, no entrance has yet been found. Trench 5 was opened to examine a possible wall at the S end, this showed that it was a slightly thinner wall, c1.1m thick, but of similar construction. This wall is part of a narrower structure that appears to be an extension to Building 2, extending 5m from N to S by 6.2m in breadth with a rounded external SE corner that postdates a cobbled surface. Its E and W walls have been largely robbed of stone. Both the interiors of the main structure and the outshot are paved with flat stones, and there are traces of burning on the paving beside the two end walls, suggesting fireplaces. Partial robbing of the floor of the main building in Trench 3 revealed traces of an earlier phase of flooring. A Bellarmine pot sherd, clay pipe and vessel glass suggest the building was abandoned in the 17th or early 18th century.

Trench 6, designed to explore the join between the two structures, shows a greater degree of robbing than at the N end, and an E/W drain under the tumble which contained an unabraided piece of well-fired late-medieval pottery in its upper fill.

The size and construction of the main part of Building 2 compares with peel houses like Kilnsike or Mervinslaw in Southdean parish.

Archive: National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE) intended

Funder: Scottish Borders Council

Website: www.peeblesarchsoc.org.uk

Joyce Durham and Piers Dixon – Peeblesshire Archaeological Society/Historic Environment Scotland

(Source: DES, Volume 16)

NT 31600 31400 (Canmore ID: 180363) The excavation programme continued, 19 March – 5 November 2016, on Building 2 at the northern end of the row of buildings which formed the Ettrick Forest stead of Shootinglee (DES 15, 178 and 16, 158).

During the previous season a series of trenches revealed a substantial 1.2m thick clay-bonded stone wall standing to c1m which formed the N end of the building. The W wall of this was more ruinous, a result of stone robbing and forestry ploughing. At the S end of the site was another building with a 1.1m thick clay-bonded stone wall running E/W. This wall has a curved corner at the E end and overlays a cobbled surface. At the start of the current season it was decided to extend excavation to all the available area within the buildings not planted with trees.

The centre of the building bounded by the N and W walls was uncovered down to the occupation surface. A sondage was dug at the NW corner which shows that the sloping site has been levelled off with possibly redeposited occupation debris; stones packed on end and clay infill. There is a hearth on two levels in the NE corner. The extent of the E wall has yet to be determined. At the S end of the site, the cobbles on which the S wall was built, extend into the interior and are overlaid by paving slabs on which there is a hearth close by the wall. The paving slabs extend N towards an E/W drain-like feature in which an unabraided piece of well-fired late-medieval pottery was found in the upper fill.

Between this and the occupation surface of the N building, there is evidence of an earlier phase of occupation yet to be investigated. The W wall of this building has been badly robbed of stone.

There have been prolific finds of clay pipe pieces, some dating to the early 17th century and green bottle glass of the same era, mainly retrieved from the clay overburden. Some 17 sherds of late medieval pottery, largely green-glaze, have been recovered most of them associated with disturbance caused by the ploughing.

Archive: NRHE (intended). Report: Tweeddale Museum (intended)

Website: peeblesarchsoc.org.uk

Funder: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

Joyce Durham and Piers Dixon – Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

(Source: DES, Volume 18)

NT 31600 31400 (Canmore ID: 180363) The excavation programme continued 25 March – 28 October 2017. Trees planted on the site in the 1970s were felled and the stumps removed, enabling the whole building to be photographed by UAV.

The S end of Building 2 has been extensively robbed in the past, and excavation in the previous season revealed a substantial drain running N/S. This turns a right angle to run E/W under what would have been the S wall of the building. To the N of this at a higher level there is an occupation layer of dark silty material with evidence of burning and small patches of yellow clay-silt covering the N half of the building. Overlying this on the E half is a layer of grey coloured clay. The occupation layer has a heat-cracked flat stone in the centre as well as hearths on two levels in the NE corner and a surround of paving. Further paving was located by the wall on the W. To the S of this paving and overlying the burnt layer is a brown silty-clay layer and two large rectangular stones, which may be part of a partition wall. Finds from the occupation layer have been mainly pieces of 17th-century clay pipe and iron objects, including nails. Below this layer are packed stones laid on end with clay filled interstices providing the make-up of the floor. Building 2 has been interpreted as a peel house similar to the clay bonded Slacks Tower and Mervinslaw S of Jedburgh.

Finds included clay pipe and metal objects. The clay pipe pieces were all broken pipe stems except for one complete bowl: all dating from the late 17th century. The metal objects included a broken knife blade with the wood of the handle still attached; a 30mm diameter lead disc and many iron

nails.

Archive: NRHE (intended). Report: Tweeddale Museum (intended)

Website: peeblesarchsoc.org.uk

Funder: Mackichan Trust, Forestry Commission Scotland, and

Peeblesshire Archaeology Society

Joyce Durham and Piers Dixon – Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

(Source: DES, Volume 18)

Joyce Durham and Piers Dixon – Peeblesshire Archaeological

Society

NT 31600 31400 Excavation continued, 7 April – 5 November

2018, at the remains of Shootinglee peel house, a fortified

farmstead in what was formally Ettrick Forest. Previous

seasons had revealed that the peel house had been partitioned

to make two living areas at ground floor level at the N end and

had a substantial extension that had been built on at the S end,

also used for domestic purposes. The N end had subsequently

burnt down and the whole building was extensively robbed of

stone. (DES 15, 178: 16, 158; 18, 174–5).

The N end was divided into quadrants for excavation, each of

which was excavated in sequence, starting with the occupation

layer. This had c20mm of burnt debris at the S end, near what

had been the partition, reducing in depth towards the N. Two

central hearths were removed and a further group of hearths

towards the NE corner, all made from weathered whinstone,

suggesting a large hanging lum. Below the burnt layer there

was a made floor of upright packing stones with yellow clay

between, which had been so placed in order to raise the floor

level. Removal of these revealed the rest of the substantial N/S

drain, part of which had been revealed in previous seasons, a

typical feature of bastle and peel houses of the Border country

where the ground floor was used to house cattle. To either side

of the drain was a paved area overlain by patches of concreted

dark brown clay, possibly the residue of byre deposits. At the

S end of the building, removal of the paving stones and hearth

uncovered a second occupation layer also covered with a layer

of burning over another paved surface. A section of the S wall

of the extension was removed to reveal that it was built upon a

scree-like material, which occupies the hillside above the site.

Finds from the building have included clay pipe and metal

objects, including nails, two musket balls (one flattened

from use), and knife blades, probably of domestic type.

Occasional finds of medieval pot suggest that there has been

earlier activity at the site.

Archive: NRHE (intended). Report: Tweeddale Museum

(intended)

Funder: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

Website: www.peeblesarchsoc.org.uk

(Source: DES, Volume 19)

NT 31600 31400 Excavation of the peel house (Trench T3) and its extension to the S (T4) was completed and the site consolidated (see DES 2018, 183). An earlier building was found W of the extension that pre-dates it and possibly the peel house too, but only one corner of the building was available to excavate due to the presence of trees (see photograph). An additional test trench (T6) was opened in June c.6m to the W to examine a possible building platform.

The byre drain that ran the length of the peel house from N-S was wider in its primary configuration at the N end, having been partially infilled with stone and clay to make it narrower. Much of the floor adjacent to the drain was covered with large paving slabs that reached the walls to E and W in the middle of the building, but left the four corners unpaved. In the NW and SE corners the floor was covered with clay, but in the NE where the subsoil was higher than elsewhere any areas of clay floor were mixed with that of the burnt floor from the next phase, while in the SW corner no clay floor at all was found. No evidence that might explain the absence of a clay floor was found.

To confirm that this was a primary floor of the building a 1m wide E-W section was excavated across the N end of the building and through its walls. This showed that the walls had been built on levelled ground and sloping ground in between had been levelled up with an infill of gravel that abutted the W wall to a depth of 0.45m. No finds or charcoal were recovered from the gravel make-up which was only found to the W of the drain. On the E side of the drain the paving stones were set in silty-clay directly on the subsoil and produced two sherds of late medieval pottery.

In the extension to the S of the peel house, the earlier of two successive paved floors was excavated and a green glazed jug handle was found sealed under it in a make-up layer of brown silt. This floor covered about one third of the interior of the extension. Where there was no paving a make-up layer of silty clay covered the NW third of the interior and extended under the line of the W wall and abutted the S wall of the peel house. This was removed to reveal a drainage gully that ran alongside the S wall of the peel house that had been cut into the subsoil and drained to the W. Its W end was traced past the SW corner of the building which it had started to undermine through erosion. Some pieces of clay pipe were found in its fill.

Under the make-up layer, a 1m wide extension of the trench on the W of the south extension of the peel house revealed a pit cut into the subsoil, 0.25m deep, that extended 2m from N to S and was roughly parallel to the footings of an earlier stone wall that had been revealed terraced into the slope to the W of the peel house extension. The construction trench for this wall was visible in the bottom of the pit.

The additional exploratory trench (T6) was opened about 5m W of the peel house to examine a possible building platform. A paved floor was found in the S end of the trench with a possible N-S wall on its S side. To the S of this there was a gravel yard surface E of a rubble base for a N-S wall that may be the robbed remains of yard wall visible immediately S of the trench.

Archive: NRHE (intended) & Tweeddale Museum (intended)

Funder: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

Website: www.peeblesarchsoc.org.uk

Piers Dixon & Joyce Durham - Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

(Source: DES Vol 20)

NT 31580 31380 Excavation took place during July to November 2020 on the site of a building previously recorded in 2012 as part of the survey of Shootinglee, a forest stead in what was formerly Ettrick Forest (DES 2012, 166). The building is situated on a wide terrace 25m NW of a peel house (DES 2019, 184).

A 10 x 6m trench (Trench 7) was opened over the W half of the building to reveal the footings of the building with 0.08m thick clay-bonded walls. Internally there is a well-built drain running E–W down the centre of the floor space, ie along the length of the building, to the W wall which has collapsed into the drain. The drain terminates at the outer edge of the wall where it is blocked by a large boulder. To the S of the drain the floor is paved and a depressed area in the centre infilled with cobbles. To the N the flooring is a rough mix of earth and stones with some paving. Unusually, the entrance appears to be in the middle of the N wall where there is an area of rough paving.

Outside the S wall there is an 0.08m depth of topsoil under which is a spread of tumbled stone in a dark brown silty soil with patches of orange. Adjacent to the wall there is a discrete area of small shattered stones measuring 0.75 x 0.75m beside a paving slab. A 1.0m wide wall extends SW from the SW corner of the building which is interpreted as forming the revetment of the terrace edge.

The removal of the tumble of the W wall revealed the wall had been built on top of a thick layer of reddish-brown clay with flecks of charcoal which forms the edge of the terrace thought to possibly be from a previous building. The W end of the N wall may have been vulnerable to subsidence due to water seepage and to counteract this it has been built on courses of placed supporting stones with a short section of drain parallel to it below.

Finds have been mostly from the 17th century onwards and consist of clay pipe, pottery, glass and metal including a small billon coin. One abraded sherd of late medieval pottery has been found inside the building.

Archive and Report: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society. Report: Scottish Borders

Funder: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

Piers Dixon, Joyce Durham – Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

(Source: DES Volume 21)

NT 31580 31380 Excavation took place during April – November 2021 on the site of a building previously recorded in 2012 as part of the survey of Shootinglee, a forest stead in what was formerly Ettrick Forest (DES Volume 13, 166). The building is situated on a wide terrace 25m NW of a peelhouse (DES Volume 20, 184–5). Features revealed during the previous season’s excavation (DES Volume 19, 183) included a well-built central drain and an area of cobbling; the work also showed that the building stands within/on the walls of an enclosure on ground levelled off with a thick spread of reddish brown clay.

With further excavation of the S half of the interior it was found that, as well as the central byre drain, there is another drain round the edge of the cobbled surface. This drain is cut into the reddish brown clay layer, with sloping edge stones and capping: it terminates at the same point in the W wall as the byre drain, which it was shown to cut. Excavation of the S wall revealed a blocked up single width entrance (0.8m wide) which predates the curved drain in the interior. Outside the entrance, a bridge of slabs covers an open drain running adjacent to the wall and led to a roughly paved yard. A possible cruck slot was found in the outside of the S wall about 1m from the SW corner. In the middle of the N wall there is a second entrance with a built-up area of paving outside. Further excavation of the stone-lined drain previously located outside the N wall in 2020 found that it did not extend under this built-up area.

The NW corner of the building was removed to excavate the

earlier enclosure. Outside the building to the S, a 1m wide trench cut alongside the S baulk found that the clay levelling here was 0.35m deep and a section across the enclosure wall was also excavated. Some pieces of charcoal have been recovered from the core of the wall, but no other finds. Work continues to obtain dating evidence of the enclosure wall.

Finds have been mostly from the 17th century onwards and consist of clay pipes, pottery, glass, and metal including a small billon coin.

The building is interpreted as having had two phases. It was originally a 17th-century byre with a door in the S wall and a central drain. In the 18th century, it was rebuilt possibly as a stable with a cobbled floor and covered drain on the S side of the byre drain and an entrance in the N wall leading to a paved yard. Archive: NRHE (intended) and Tweeddale Museum (intended)

Piers Dixon and Joyce Durham – Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

(Source: DES Vol 22)

NT 31580 31380 Excavations took place during April to September 2022 on the site of a building previously recorded in 2012 as part of the survey of Shootinglee, a forest stead in what was formerly Ettrick Forest (DES Volume 13, 166). The focus of this season’s excavation was to gain more evidence of the earlier enclosure that was found to underlie the byre and terraced platform excavated in 2021.

The enclosure is made up of two differing walls that abut in the NW corner of the trench. The wall to the W comprises a bank, 0.4m in height and 1.1m in breadth, lined with large stones along its length. By contrast, the wall to the N is a more substantial structure. It comprises a clay base, 1.5m in breadth, 0.2m in height and edged with stones, which is topped with large stones in a red brown silty clay matrix, adding a further 0.3m in height. In the corner formed by the junction of the two walls, a narrow revetment wall parallel to the N wall, 0.4m in width and 0.25m in height, lined the S edge of a hollowed out area, 1m wide, cut into the underlying clay to a depth of 0.15m. The hollow was completely filled with red brown clay silt which produced a sherd of late medieval Red Ware pottery; the presence of charcoal and worm holes in the fill of the hollow suggest it had been open to normal soil processes. It is suggested the revetment encloses an animal pen in in the corner of the enclosure. Further charcoal samples for dating were retrieved from the N wall and the soil in the hollow.

In addition to this trench, further excavation was carried out

to elucidate a cobbled surface originally revealed in 2019 in an exploratory trench a short distance W of the peel house (DES Volume 20, 184–5). The cobbling was edged with large stones on its W and overlay a largely robbed out stone wall on a NW/SE axis marked by a row of large stones with some packing of smaller stones and silty clay between. This may be a relic of a stony bank that was plotted in the field to the W in the 2012 survey. It was cut by a later and more complete stone wall to its W at right angles to it. The cobbles were dated to the 17th century by clay pipe and there were also a few sherds of late medieval Red Ware pottery in its make-up.

A final trench, 1 x 9m, was opened to see if there was a building present in the platform to the N of the peel house and, if so, to determine its date. This revealed two parallel walls 3.8m apart, set at the front and back of the terrace and both robbed to their footings. The walls were about 1.2m in breadth, faced with large stones and packed with red brown silty clay and smaller stones. The area between the robbed walls was overlain by a pinkish-grey layer of silty clay up to 0.4m in depth over an uneven hard-packed brash of angular stones in red-brown silty clay and a large flat stone in the middle that might be a remnant of paved surface. The finds

from this post-occupation layer included a piece of haematite, bottle glass and four sherds of post-medieval pottery suggesting that the building was demolished in the late 17th or early 18th century. The walls compare well with those of the peel house, but its uneven floor suggests it is an outbuilding rather than domestic structure.

All trenches were backfilled and the ground restored. No further excavations are planned and post-excavation work started in 2020 is continuing.

Archive: NRHE and Tweeddale Museum Funder: Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

Piers Dixon and Joyce Durham – Peeblesshire Archaeological Society

(Source: DES Volume 23)