Drum

NT08SW 24 0160 8084.

NT 0160 8084. Aerial photographs (RCAHMS air photographs WL 1536-8, flown 1977) show the indistinct cropmark of a possible sub-circular ditched enclosure, 23-25m in overall diameter with an irregular break in the E side. There are amorphous other markings on the E and W sides of the work, but these also may be natural.

At the indicated siting is an amorphous, apparently natural, hollow in an undulating field of stubble at c45m OD.

Visited by OS (J R L) 27 February 1980.

By comparison with the features revealed by excavation described on NT08SW 103, this is probably the shaft of a coal pit.

Bailey 1994d.

NT 0155 8080 (centre). During February 1996 trial trenching was undertaken in order to evaluate the suitability for scheduling of three cropmarks located 100m to the NW of Muirhouses Roman temporary camp (NT 0165 8070). The largest of the three (cropmark 1; NT08SW 89) was presumed to be a prehistoric ditched enclosure, the second a possible prehistoric roundhouse (cropmark 2; NT08SW 24), and the third possibly a disused coal pit or shaft (cropmark 3). Cropmarks 1 and 2 were located by trial trenches.

Cropmark 2, noted by the NMRS as a possible circular enclosure measuring c 21-25m across, was found to correspond to a scooped feature or depression known as 'Mary's Hole'. This feature appears to be recorded as a pond on the OS 1st edition and is named on the 2nd edition as 'Mary's Hole'. Large quantities of shale, ash and coal waste were recovered from within the scoop, presumably as a result of the deliberate infilling of the feature during the late 19th century.

A detailed report will be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland.

A R Rees 1996