Islay, Port Ellen, Kilnaughton

NR34NW 54 344 451

NR 344 451. Controlled topsoil stripping prior to a new residential development took place in November 2005. Five discrete areas of stripping totalled 870m². No archaeological deposits, features or artefacts were encountered.

Archive to be deposited in NMRS.

Sponsor: Woodrow Construction.

E Hindmarch 2005

NR 34422 45135. An archaeological evaluation, comprising level 1 building recording and trial trenching, was undertaken in April 2006 of a small parcel of land located immediately to the S of the Scheduled Ancient Monument of Kilnaughton Chapel, Islay. A ruined stone-built croft of 19th- and probably early 20th-century date showed two phases of construction. No earlier structures survived beneath the ruined croft. A small section of earlier bedding trench, presumably the remnants of some form of organic fencing/walling, may have functioned as a boundary, as it was at the top of a dune slope overlooking Kilnaughton bay. This boundary cut earlier buried wind-blown sands interbedded with cultivated buried soils and one thin, distinct midden layer; no finds were associated. Possible rig and furrow also survived buried beneath a great depth of hardcore to the N of the ruin; this buried soil was cut by at least two later pits. No structures associated with the midden deposit and earlier buried soils were found.

Following on from an archaeological evaluation a watching brief on the ground-breaking works associated with the erection of a new dwelling was undertaken. A series of buried wind-blown sands interbedded with cultivated buried soils containing midden material (bone, shell, peat ash and charcoal), but with no associated finds, were recorded within the sections of the foundation trenches. Two early modern pits were also recorded within these sections.

Sponsor: Mr A MacKinnon

C Ellis 2006.