Braidwood

NT 19245 59278 A watching brief was carried out on 19 March 2013 during excavations for a new water pipe, whose route crossed the projected route of a Roman road. The majority of the trench did not contain any deposits of interest. However, broadly in line with the visible remains of a road/trackway, a stone feature around 0.7m wide was encountered 0.35m below the surface. The large sub-rounded stones did not form a coherent structure and contained no bonding material. Directly to the SE was a moderately compact deposit containing a large number of small to medium angular stones and associated with a discrete deposit of clay. The large stones would appear to form an edge or revetment, most probably to an early road or track as it rises to a bridge allowing it to cross a watercourse. There was no evidence for the opposite side of the track which may have been removed during construction of a modern road which lies above it. No datable artefacts were recovered.

A metalled surface had been recorded along the line of the Roman road during excavations in 1966 at nearby Walstone and was interpreted as distinctly non-Roman. The lack of a detailed description of the surface at Walstone prevented comparison with the Braidwood finding.

Archive: RCAHMS

Funder: Braidwood Community

Jenni Morrison, Addyman Archaeology, 2013

(Source: DES)