Whitrig Bog

Site visited by Scottish Borders Council Archaeology Service. Information from SBC

Whitrig Bog is a drained lake site and appears tobe an inter-drumlin hollow within a region of Calciferous Sandstone. The deposits were once exploited for clays (tiles, etc.) and marls, but the workings were abandoned and the area grassed over when the present tenants took over the farmi n the 1930s.

Mitchell (1948) reported a brief examination of a pit excavated into the deposits. He was attracted o the site because Bennie, in his papers of the turn-of-the-century, had recorded clays, marls, an "Arctic bed" with Salix leaves, and occasional coleopteran fossils in the Whitrig Bog deposits. These were well exposed at the time in the exposures of the active brickworks. Mitchell's pit showed two layers of marl separated by a red clay,and he concluded that a Late Glacial succession was preserved at the site.

J John Lowe and Richard M Tipping visited the site in June 1991 to establish the potential for further, more detailed investigations of the succession. A random pit 1.90m deep was dug which provided the following profile (14/6/91):

0-0.50m marl, creamy coloured but brown-mottled 0r brown-streaked throughout at 0.47-0.50m

0.50-0.52m grey marl

0.52-1.01m structureless red clay

1.01-1.32m laminated clay; upper laminations red and grey, but these grade to red-and-black laminations towards base fine partings of mosses and thin sand partings towards base; some partings show well preserved Salix leaves

1.32-1.87m black, sometimes laminated organic muds; some upper layers with leaves and seeds; occasional coleopteran elytra and other body parts observed; deposits tend to turn buff-grey on drying, therefore possibly marls (?)

1.87-1.90m brown-grey marls and gyttja; these deposits appear to continue downwards for at least another 0.30m

Base of site not reached; appear to be extensive organic deposits below sampled levels.