Knappers Quarry
Burial Ground (Bronze Age), Ritual Site (Prehistoric)
Site Name Knappers Quarry
Classification Burial Ground (Bronze Age), Ritual Site (Prehistoric)
Alternative Name(s) Kilbowie; Knappers Sand Quarry; Duntocher Boulevard; Great Western Road
Canmore ID 44524
Site Number NS57SW 22
NGR NS 5070 7130
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/44524
- Council West Dunbartonshire
- Parish Old Kilpatrick (Clydebank)
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Clydebank
- Former County Dunbartonshire
NS57SW 22.00 5070 7130
NS57SW 22.01 NS 5089 7101 to NS 5097 7149 Trial Excavations; Beaker
(NS 5070 7130) A Bronze Age burial ground was uncovered in 1933-4 by workmen, and during excavations by Davidson, at Knappers Sand Quarry, on the E side of Duntocher Boulevard (Great Western Road). Some 34 deposits were found, including cremation inhumation burials, some under cairns. Artifacts found included a polished flint adze, a stone some 3' long and 21" broad at its widest, said to be an end stone of a cist, marked with two pecked double ellipses and other markings (this is now in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum), an Early Bronze Age rivetted dagger, flint scrapers, flakes, segmented paste beads, jet beads, some six food vessels in varying degrees of preservation, fragments of unidentifiable Bronze Age pottery, a very small rim fragment of grey-black ware, with a fine plain surface, which Davidson suggests is probably Roman, and a few sherds of green-glazed medieval ware.
In September 1937, a grave was found at NS 5073 7127 (information from A S Robertson to OS, 1951) near Knappers farm. Roughly circular, with irregular boulder-built sides, it contained a Neolithic bowl and a plano-convex flint knife. A number of neolithic and Bronze Age sherds were also found in the area between 1937 and 1938. These artifacts are now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).
In 1951, Mr Mann owned a number of items from this site, but after his death, his collection was given to Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum. He also constructed a bogus henge, W of the Great Western Road; not far from the Knappers Quarry.
Catalogue of finds and re-assessment of site, suggesting the existence of a henge or a Bronze Age Barrow, pre-dating a Food Vessel cemetery.
J M Davidson 1935; R W B Morris 1967; J M Coles 1971; V G Childe 1946; R R Mackay 1950; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1960; Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum 1955; L M Mann 1939; J N G Ritchie and H C Adamson 1982; Information from L M Mann to OS, 10 May 1951.
(Flat rivetted knife-dagger). Knife-dagger, two rivet-holes with rivets still in position, flat section. Recorded length 10.6cm, recorded width 3.7cm. Lost.
S Gerloff 1975.
NS 5083 7125 / 5083 7130. At the eastern limits of the sand quarry was a refuse tip, which was recently cleared away and landscaped. The sand quarry was similarly landscaped, with the holes filled in. The area is now being developed for housing, after an excavation of the site. See MS 2458.
Addyman Associates 2004.
Note (1978)
Knappers NS 507 712 NS57SW 22
In the 1930s a prehistoric cemetery and ritual site were discovered in the course of extensive sand-quarrying on each side of the Duntocher Boulevard (A82). More than 30 burials were recorded, some in cists or protective stone settings of different kinds. The finds include Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery (at least 6 Food Vessels); a rivetted bronze dagger; lignite and faience beads; a ring-marked slab which probably formed one end of a cist containing a flint adze; and a piano-convex flint knife (accompanying the Neolithic pottery).
RCAHMS 1978
(Davidson 1935; Mann 1939; Childe 1946, 112 nos. 169-74; Mackay 1948; PSAS, xci, 1957-8, 200, no. 1; Morris 1966, 160, no. 34)
