Perth, South Inch, Cromwellian Citadel

NO12SW 22 1202 2306

(NO 1200 2306) Site of Cromwell's Citadel (NR)

OS 6" map, (1938).

There are no remains of the fort built by Cromwell in 1652 AD. It was of a square form, with a bastion at each corner, and was surrounded by a high rampart of earth and a deep moat.

Information from 'Plan of Perth' 1774 and 'Plan of Perth' 1792; NSA 1845; OS Name Book 1860.

Cromwellian Citadel. No vestiges of this feature now exist. An inscription in the SE angle of the Waterworks Building states that that spot indicates the site of the Citadel.

Visited by OS (J L D) 14 December 1960.

NO 119 231. A large deep machine trench was dug in the area between Princes Street and Marshall Place to locate the northern defences of the Cromwellian citadel. The defensive ditch was not located but a sand layer and stone foundations may have belonged to the fort interior. No conclusive dating evidence was recovered.

Sponsors: SUAT; Historic Scotland

R Cachart 1991.

NO 119 230. SUAT undertook archaeological trial work in advance of environmental improvements on the South Inch Car Park, Perth. Seven trenches were opened up and archaeological deposits and features were recorded that related to the Cromwellian Citadel erected on the site in 1652.

Seven trenches, A-G, were machine dug using a 0.90m wide bucket. Five trenches, A, C, D, E and G were located in the SE part of the car-park to find evidence of the ditch and walls of the citadel's SE bastion. Trench B was placed at the southern end of the car-park and aligned N to S so as to intercept the southern ditch. Trench F was placed in the NW part of the car-park on the site of the Pavilion Theatre and aligned E to W to look for evidence of the interior of the citadel.

The substantial remains of walls were found close to the present car-park surface. Trenches A and C revealed the remains of a wall comprising split whin bonded with hard lime mortar which represented the inner revelment wall of the E ditch. The wall was recorded to a depth of 2m without it being bottomed. Trench G found the inner revetment wall of the southern ditch. Trenches D and E found mixed fills within the southeastern bastion.

Trench B was 26.30m long and for the greater part of its length revealed the contents of the backfilled wide ditch between the southern bastions. The fills were varied and suggested that waste, spoil and demolition material from the town had been used. The pottery varied from a few sherds of redeposited medieval to early 19th century. At the northern end of the trench, the remains of mortared stonework appeared to be part of the robbed out inner reverting wall of southern ditch.

Trench F located a gravel surface, possibly a road running around the interior of the citadel.

Sponsor: Perth and Kinross District Council.

R Cachart 1994.

NO 1187 2305. Resistivity survey followed by test-pitting established the SW limits of the Cromwellian Citadel at a shallow depth, S of Marshall Place and W of Edinburgh Road. The top of ditch deposits and revetment walling against the inner face of the ditch were identified, but no features were encountered within the interior. These results complement previous work concerning the location of the citadel (Cachart 1994) and confirm that remains relating to the fort survive very close to the present ground surface. The finds recovered from the evaluation are mainly 18th century and relate to the infilling and disuse of the citadel, although some heavily abraded residual medieval pot sherds were recovered.

Sponsor: Perth and Kinross District Council Roads & Transport Department.

S Stronach 1997.

NO 1180 2300 Between April and June 1999 excavations were carried out in the area of the SW bastion of the Cromwellian citadel located in Perth's South Inch. The site lay to the S of Marshall Place and to the W of the Edinburgh Road and was necessitated by the proposed building of an embankment across the site as part of Perth's flood prevention scheme. A watching brief was also carried out in September 1999 as a 'keying-in' trench was excavated across much of the site to a depth of c 2m.

The walls of the SW bastion were located by excavation, a geophysical survey and trial excavation having been undertaken in 1997 (Stronach 1997). The majority of the bastion revetment wall was located, and was found to return to the main N-S curtain wall of the citadel to the N. The foundation trench for the wall was found to be around 3m in depth, and up to three building episodes were visible, although this probably related to different construction teams, rather than the possible rebuilding of the citadel during the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745-6. Various spreads of gravel and ditches had apparently demarcated the location of the citadel prior to the excavation of the foundation trench. The build-up of the ramparts with sand and gravel from the foundation and moat trenches was also recognised, and the robbed-out corner of a possible internal building, or rampart retaining wall, was uncovered to the NE of the site, continuing under the Edinburgh Road.

A machine-dug trench was excavated in order to investigate the moat of the citadel to the S of the bastion, and this was seen to have a width of c 20m, and a depth of c 2.6m. Material from the demolition of the ramparts and the walls was found in the moat, as well as silting deposits and midden material probably dumped during the 19th and 20th centuries (though containing much medieval material). The revetment walls of the bastion, made of whinstone and sandstone bonded with lime mortar, had been badly robbed, with no visible remains of facing stones, and the moat had apparently been re-excavated at least twice - once before the demolition of the ramparts in the late 18th century, and once sometime thereafter.

Two service trenches were found to cross the site of the bastion from NE-SW, one containing an iron pipe and the other a ceramic pipe with diameter 0.65m. This latter trench had been re-excavated and the pipe destroyed. Two brick manhole structures were located along the line of this trench. Various post-holes and pits across the site probably related to 19th and 20th-century cattle markets.

Sponsor: Perth and Kinross Council.

M Roy 1999.

Scheduled as Perth, Cromwell's Citadel. Built for Cromwell's troops in Scotland, started in 1652.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 14 February 2002.

An inscription on the south side of the water works indicates that Cromwell's Citadel stood on this site in 1651.

Information from P Philippou, 27 April 2009.