Hawthornsyke

NT 059 784

An area known as Nynia Well Field that showed a large rectangular cropmark was examined and fieldwalked where plouged. The well on the NE side has a cut stone surround on three sides. The cropmark extends N from the well to a stone-lined rectangular depression and thence W for over 200m to another rectangle less clear on the photograph; the final section of the cropmark runs N and peters out. No cropmark is visible on the N side of the photograph but fieldwalking indicated that the remains of a wall and ditch run along the N side of a flat-topped knoll. A small area of ploughed ground was walked on the N side of the rectangular depression; four sherds of medieval pottery were found and one ?pot lid.

The full length of the S side of the cropmark was in a ploughed area as was the SW corner rectangle; these were walked and two pieces of flint and one of chert was found.

Sponsors: Edinburgh Archaeological Field Society, Hopetoun Estate.

H MD Jones 2001

NT 059 784 The cropmark to the W of Nynia Well on the Hopetoun Estate (DES 2001, 98) was partly surveyed using ground resistance, and two transects were made across a linear feature to the N.

An area of 1450m2 that largely covered the E limb of the cropmark between the well and the rectangular depression at the S end showed a low resistance line with higher resistance on either side, possibly indicating a ditch with inner and outer walls or banks.

The linear feature to the N seems unrelated to the cropmark. It shows a high resistance in its centre, with a low resistance (?ditch) on the southern, downhill, side. Its alignment suggests it might be part of the Queensferry to Linlithgow via Abercorn road system shown on the James Knox Edinburghshire (N) map of 1821/22.

Sponsors: Hopetoun Estate, Edinburgh Archaeological Field Society.

H M D Jones 2002