Drum

NT08SW 89 0154 8076.

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

Bailey 1994.

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 1 is visible on aerial photographic coverage as a curvilinear ditched mark forming approximately a half-circle. Two trenches were excavated across this feature. One trench produced a section of the boundary ditch of the enclosure and a length of possible ring-groove slot within the enclosure. The ditch was aligned E-W and measured 4m across by 0.54m in depth with an irregular profile; its position corresponds to the cropmark feature. From within the lower fills of the ditch were recovered two small sherds of samian ware, heavily abraded and with only slight traces of slip evident on the surface. The sherds are undecorated, and are not closely datable. The section of ring-groove slot was U-shaped in profile, measured 0.34m wide by 0.14m in depth, and contained no apparent post-holes in the base of the slot.

AR Rees 1996