Edinburgh, South Bridge/ Cowgate: Fire Site

NT 260 735 An archaeological watching brief was carried out in June-July 2006 on the ground-breaking works at the Cowgate Fire Site, in the World Heritage Site of the Old Town. No significant archaeological features or artefacts were encountered.

Archive to be deposited in NMRS.

Sponsor: Whiteburn Cowgate Limited.

NT 259 734 Work was undertaken in response to the findings of an evaluation in April 2004. This showed that

the southern part of the site was extensively terraced into the natural slope during the late 18th century, removing any earlier archaeology. The remainder of the site was overlain by deposits that increased in depth towards the Cowgate. These deposits ensured the survival of 18th- and 19th century walls and small pockets of midden material that were presumed to be post-medieval, or perhaps medieval, in date (Dunbar 2004). The excavation carried out, 12 November–7 December 2007, revealed five distinct phases of activity.

Underlying the remnants of the 20th-century buildings, associated services and a series of brick access pits, were found the bases of 19th-century tenement walls. Some internal partitioning of the contemporary cellarage and an associated area of cobbles survived.

The 19th-century features truncated and overlay a number of 18th-century structures. These included a cobbled surface, a series of walls, some drains and discontinuous areas of stone flagging.

Underlying these were the traces of an earlier building with some intact architectural features and related drain

systems.

The earliest phase of activity consisted of a substantial block of bonded masonry and the truncated remains of a large pit.

There was a sizable ceramics assemblage including a complete ‘pirlie pig’ money bank, a small collection of coins and worked bone, as well as animal bones and shellfish remains.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended)

Funder: Whiteburn Cowgate Ltd, Edinburgh

Lindsay Dunbar (AOC Archaeology Group), 2008

NT 2597 7343 The final stages of a programme of work, which commenced in June 2008, was undertaken at the fire damaged site of 233 Cowgate, the adjacent Hastie’s Close, 1–2 Chambers Street and South Bridge in August 2012. Stage 1 consisted of the production of detailed measured, written and photographic survey of the wall stubs remaining after the main demolition of the rest of the fire damaged buildings. The survey identified a number of original doorways and blocked openings together with some fireplaces, which formed the last remnants of the early 19th-century buildings. Stage 2 consisted of the recording of the interior of the remaining building at 1–2 Chambers Street to the S of the site. This building was originally constructed in the 1870s as a department store, and underwent renovations by new owners in the 1920s and 1930s. Stage 3 consisted of a watching brief in the Chambers Street building and additional recording work at Hastie’s Close.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended)

Funder: Sweett UK Ltd

Diana Sproat, AOC Archaeology Group

2012

A third phase of historic building recording was undertaken at the Cowgate Fire Site in June/July 2012. This work came about due to a new development on the site after the previous developer (Whiteburn) ceased to continue their development in 2008.

Information from Diana Sproat (AOC Archaeology Group) February 2015. OASIS ID: aocarcha1-130455

NT27SE 5894 centred 2594 7346

(NT 259 734) A historical assessment was undertaken between December 2002 and August 2003 of the evolution of the site in the immediate aftermath of the disastrous fire, on the night of Saturday 7 December 2002, that destroyed an important part of the Edinburgh townscape at the junction of Cowgate and South Bridge. Standing building recording was then undertaken during demolition on the site. The requirement for safety necessitated a system of remote recording, with digital photogrammetric techniques and laser scanning of elevations. In conjunction with the fieldwork, historians were employed to investigate the wealth of untapped historical data available.

The site contained one of the few undeveloped areas of the Cowgate - with the boundaries and substantial surviving fabric of the tenements available for study - and had been directly affected by some of the most significant 18th and 19th-century developments of the Edinburgh townscape - Adam Square, the South Bridge schemes and the creation of Chambers Street respectively. The original plot boundaries still survived as property walls, with lost closes reappearing as passages and courts within the site.

Eight major phases have been identified, from pre-1750 to the present.

Although very little early fabric was recovered, the area around Hasties Close was shown to have the best survival for the pre-1750s, with part of Wilkie House containing a post-medieval building incorporated into a later 19th-century warehouse. A discovery of note was the confirmation that the 1823 tenements with the arcaded facade along the Cowgate were in fact by the architect, Thomas Hamilton, who later constructed George IV Bridge and the Royal High School. These tenements were part of the first Social Improvements Scheme set in place by Edinburgh City Council.

The later 1923 work of J Motram within the 1788 structure of the South Bridge, during the period when these buildings were part of the J & R Allan Store, was also of great interest. He had stripped the interior and filled the empty shell with a steel girder frame; the fine 'stone' facade along the South Bridge turned out to be of wooden construction (a cunning deception); and the Allan Link Bridge was shown to be of steel girder construction with a stone cladding. This bridge also managed to ruin the soaring lines of the original span of the South Bridge.

The archaeological examination of the structures has allowed a 500-year-old tradition to be followed; the spaces, with the closes, vennels and courtyards, outliving the actual buildings that surround them. It has shown that the World Heritage Site of Edinburgh contains a wealth of information, both structural and historical, which would add layers of history, from personal tales to grand schemes, to this area.

It is expected that further sub-surface work in this area will tie historical details with solid evidence.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsors: City of Edinburgh Council, Edinburgh World Heritage Trust.

D Connolly 2003.

NT 2596 7346 An archaeological evaluation was undertaken in April 2004 of the fire site bounded by Cowgate and South Bridge. Following demolition works and building recording (DES 2003, 73) a 5% evaluation of the sub-surface deposits was undertaken. Six trenches totalling more than 65m squared were opened across the site. The evaluation demonstrated that the southern half of the site had been extensively terraced, removing any archaeological deposits, but that sub-surface wall remains still survived across the northern half of the site. The majority of these walls relate to the late 18th- to early 20th-century buildings, though a wall close to the northern boundary may be earlier.

The trenching also provided a gauge as to the depths of deposits along the Cowgate frontage. Deposits were no deeper than 2m in any of the three trenches that lay in the N of the site, and where midden layers were encountered they were relatively thin (maximum 0.2m) and not demonstrably medieval in date. The lack of any residual medieval pottery would also seem to indicate that the site was devoid of any medieval features.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsor: Simpson & Brown Architects.

L Dunbar 2004