Newsletter – Issue 139, August 2002

Cramond Excavations (from Val Dean)

It’s finally happened – the EAFS site at Cramond has been backfilled, de-fenced and generally tidied up. It is rapidly disappearing beneath a forest of sprouting vegetation. Some of us have vivid memories of trying to clear enough space to lay out the first trench in 1988. Over the years, we have been extremely fortunate in having so many people willing to spend their leisure time digging out more than 250 cubic metres of earth and stones – and then putting it all back! And they also had to clean, number and bag all the bits of pottery, glass, iron and bones, etc. A heartfelt thank-you to all those people.
We are now assessing the 40,000 finds – minus the heaps of shells and pantile chunks which were counted, recorded and then reburied. A comprehensive catalogue has to be compiled, and specialists sought to report on the various finds categories. This will inevitably incur expense, leading to applications for grants, etc. A group of members is meeting at City Archaeologist’s premises on a regular basis to tackle this work.

Planned Outings

1) A Cremation Circle, Burnt Mound and Bastle House at Daer Reservoir
Tam Ward and his associates from the Biggar Museum Trust have been busy over the last six months excavating several sites on the high ground to the west of the Daer Reservoir. Amongst the finds have been an extremely well preserved cremation circle and a burnt mound, adding yet further to the plethora of Neolithic and Bronze Age material from this part of Lanarkshire. They have also uncovered a bastle house (a small fortified building associated with 16th century Border Reivers).
A visit has been arranged to this site above the Daer Reservoir for 1400 hrs on Sunday, 11th August.
2) East Coldoch Excavations
Dr D J Woolliscroft, a prominent excavator of Roman and Iron Age sites, will be investigating an Iron Age settlement in Stirlingshire in the near future. Arrangements have been made to visit the site at 1400 hrs on Friday, 23rd August.

Recent Outings

1) Trimontium
Members of the Society were given a guided walk round Melrose, Newstead and Trimontium by Donald Gordon on 8th June. There is little to see of the fort itself although its shear size with its annexes must have been impressive seeming to cover the whole landscape. It has all the features of the main assembly area that armies used as a springboard for invasions of the northeast. The most remarkable feature is the recently identified amphitheatre – the only one found in Scotland. It is quite small in Roman terms with only up to 2000 spectators and it is likely to have been used for training and ceremonial occasions – none of your gladiators here. After refreshments at Newstead we returned to Melrose.
2) Torwood Castle and Broch
On 13th July members of the Society visited the area of Torwood near Falkirk. We were privileged to have Falkirk District Archaeologist, Geoffe Bailley (to whom many thanks) with us as our mentor and guide.
Resistivity at Cramond
We have performed two ground resistance surveys at Cramond alongside and to the west of our last excavated Trench H. The permission to conduct geophysics in the Scheduled Monument area was implicit but not clearly defined in original correspondence with Historic Scotland but this has now been rectified. Four further areas appear worth examination and hopefully the results will add something to the understanding of the extent of the vicus to the east of the fort and to what might be in the extreme northwest corner of the fort itself.
Geophysics at Standingstone/Mainshill, East Lothian
The survey in the field at NT 5659 7325 duly took place over the weekend 25-46 May – in distinctly showery weather. Durham University had made a magnetometry survey of ten 20×20 metre squares with a partial survey of a further five.
East Bonhard – the end
Our two day dig on 22-23 June went some way to giving that explanation – it was all geological.
Trench 1 was eight metres long east west and a metre wide; it was laid out to cover the centre of the ‘tadpole’ cropmark and extended eastwards over a point that showed a resistivity high and a magnetic anomaly. The topsoil was a mere 30cm deep and the subsoil appeared to be a mixture of glacially deposited material. The western end of the trench, under the cropmark, consisted of a compacted sandy gravel, much better draining than the reddish and grey clays that formed the subsoil to the east – an explanation of the cropmark? Trench 2 was over a resistive and magnetic anomaly with no cropmark and it again showed shallow topsoil and glacially deposited subsoil with
a mixture of erratic boulders – the igneous ones could well be responsible for the magnetic anomaly.

SCOTTISH ARCHAEOLOGY MONTH (from Val Dean)

The Society will again be joining forces with Cramond Heritage Trust to offer activities at Cramond on Saturday, 21st and Sunday, 22nd September. As usual, there will be guided walks on various aspects of Cramond, Patrick Cave-Browne will run the ancient technology workshop, and a geophysical survey demonstration will be given. Full details will be on the website nearer the time: www.eafs.org.uk

Newsletter – Issue 138, June 2002

Cramond Excavations (from Val Dean)

The end is in sight – of the fieldwork at least! The backfilling is almost complete, thanks to the many willing labourers. However, there is still a lot of work to do – the finds in particular will need to be assessed and reported on, which is likely to require the services of various specialists. A data structure report will be prepared in the interim, with a final report to follow. Several sessions have been held at Broughton Market to catalogue and box the finds, and more will be arranged in the near future. Finishing at Cramond is going to be quite a wrench, since the Society has been excavating in the area since 1975 – assisting at the Roman Bathhouse and associated excavations run by the City Archaeologist, working at Cramond Tower and Cramond House, investigating the Roman road in the woods to the east of the Fort, and checking in trenches dug for house foundations and services, etc. But, as building developments never stop here – and the Campus development has yet to start – who knows what the future may hold!

Planned Outings

1) Trimontium, 8th June 2002 (from Bill MacLennan)
The members of the Trimontium Trust have arranged to take us on a tour round the historic environs of Melrose including the site of the Roman Fort and its recently discovered Amphitheatre.
The Trust has been running tours for many years and I can assure you that these are extremely enjoyable and interesting – made even better by the cup of tea and a bite to eat at the end of it. You will be starting at the Trust Museum so that you can visit this before or after the tour. I can highly recommend it.
The time and date are 1400 hours on Saturday, 8th June 2002, and we shall be meeting outside the Trimontium Trust Museum on Melrose Main Street.
2) SGIFA Geophysical Day, 14th June 2002 (from Dave Jones)
We have been invited by Tim Neighbour of C.F.A. Archaeology (but who in this case is acting for the Scottish Group, Institute of Field Archaeologists) to participate in a day of geophysical talks and discussions. The venue and the cost (if any) are not yet known.
For any member wanting a rapid introduction to the subject, with indications of when particular techniques will or will not prove useful, this could be a very useful day.
Both Tim and Bruce Hobbs, who have helped us at Lauriston and East Bonhard, figure among the speakers.
3) Torwood Castle and Torwood Broch, 13th July 2002 (from Bill MacLennan)
Geoff Bailey has agreed to meet us at Torwood to show us round the castle and to take us up to the nearby broch. We shall also have the chance of standing on the remains of the Roman road that runs past the castle.
Torwood castle is a 15th century tower house and is of particular interest because Geoff and the local archaeological society recently excavated the site. The broch looks nondescript from the outside but, viewed from the inside, there is skilfully executed stonework, an entrance with characteristic door fittings and intramural stairs and chambers.
The outing will be at 1400 hours on Saturday, 13th July 2002. We shall be meeting at the castle. To get there travel to Falkirk and leave it on the A9 heading north. Passing to the east of the site of the Roman Fort and to the west of Larbert you should go straight over the roundabout at North Broomage. About 2 km past the roundabout (having gone over the M876) you should turn left onto an undesignated road, turning left again after 1 km onto a poorly metalled track at the end of which should be the castle. There should be room for parking but please make sure not to block any of the drives to the recently built houses nearby.
3) Geoff Bailey needs you! (from Bill MacLennan)
Geoff Bailey will be starting a 2 week excavation of the Annexe to the Roman Fort near Falkirk on Saturday, 3rd August 2002. Given the amount of work involved he is in need of all the volunteers he can get. I do not have full details yet but if you are interested I should be happy to hear from you.

Recent Outings

1) The United Services Museum at Edinburgh Castle, Thursday, 14th February 2002 (from Bill MacLennan)
The Military Museum at Edinburgh Castle has recently been redesigned and renovated, and redesignated as the United Services Museum. Members of our Society were particularly privileged to have a close look at the museum and to have a presentation from Mr Allan, the deputy director. The museum is not a dry collection of regimental silver and old uniforms. It covers a number of themes from the formation of Scottish regiments in the 17th century onwards, and gives a real feeling of the discomforts, dangers, satisfactions and comradeship engendered in soldiers of these far off days. I particularly liked the early photographs that presented soldiers as ordinary soldiers rather than some of the paintings of officers in more heroic studio poses. It is certain that many of us will be back to see what we missed last time.

2) Linlithgow Palace Open Day, Saturday, 23rd February 2002 (from Bill MacLennan)
Some of us attended an open day on an excavation on a site to the west of Linlithgow Palace sponsored by Historic Scotland. The weather was so awful that the presentation had to take place indoors in a room to the west of the palace entrance. It sounds dismissive to say that the most exciting thing that the excavators had struck was a midden. As usual however the midden contained a wealth of material. Apart from the usual domestic animal bones there was a wide range of Late Medieval pottery with Green Glaze Ware well to the fore. The children and those of us who have never grown up had great fun looking down a microscope at cereal grains and trying to identify them.
3) Visit to Craigie Hill Fort, Saturday, 6th April 2002 (from Ian Hawkins)
Seven Society Members visited the prehistoric settlement at Craigie Hill on the road between Cramond Brig and Kirkliston. The site is not all that spectacularly situated, being adjacent to a large disused quarry which appears to be popular with local motorcyclists. There is an interesting revetted wall built of large stone blocks to the right as you enter the quarry and the Fort was reached after a short walk and a not too steep climb up through trees.
The fort is located on a steep-sided wooded ridge overlooking the flood plain of the Gogar Burn and the River Almond and is the only high ground in the immediate area although most of the Northern part of the ridge has been quarried away. The fort has good natural defences on three sides and there is a sequence of three stone-walled ramparts to protect the West side. The Northern area of the Fort consists of an oval enclosure known as The Citadel surrounded by a low stone-walled rampart, which overlies the earlier walls, with one possible entrance to the North West. Any evidence of an approach to this entrance has been lost due to quarrying. The citadel is thought to be of Dark Age date and is almost identical to Dalmahoy Hill.
The remainder of the interior of the fort lies over a low knoll where the foundations of several platforms and hut circles were visible. Probably due to the proximity to the surface of the bedrock there is very little sign of animal burrowing activity and the remains are very well preserved. The walls and some of the hut circles were excavated by J Y Simpson in 1868. The level area extends to the Southwest where the remains of a (much) later stone wall remain. Past this it slopes away to the South West to the road, where a stone-lined cist was found at the roadside in 1827. The underside of the cover stone was sculptured with a cup and four rings, and sets of concentric circles. This stone was removed to near Barnbogle Castle but has been missing since 1970, possibly built into the sea wall after the great gale of 1969. The other cist stones were moved to Craigiehall Temple and they too have disappeared. This find extends the history of the Fort and its environs back to the Bronze Age as other cists have been found near the Catstane which is visible from the fort.

Mainshill, East Lothian (from Dave Jones)

The too rapid growth of the crop at Overhailes caused the cancellation of our previously planned resistivity survey in East Lothian but a setaside site nearer Haddington is on offer for a survey on 25-26 May – I hope the Newsletter gets out rapidly.
The field at NT5659 7325 is just north of a minor road junction that itself is north of Mainshill Farm.
Durham University have made a magnetometry survey over a curvilinear cropmark and the intention is to see whether a ground resistance survey will add further information to that survey.

East Bonhard (from Dave Jones)

Since we were requested by RCAHMS to look at a field at East Bonhard on which an aerial photograph showed what might have been a souterrain we have conducted area resistivity surveys, magnetometry surveys and resistivity linear array surveys, and fieldwalked in all manner of weather. The result has been no confirmation of a souterrain or indeed of anything that could be said confidently to be Iron Age.
Thanks to the cooperation of the Geology and Geophysics Dept of Edinburgh University we do have two areas (one quite close to the aerial photograph ‘souterrain’ mark) that show magnetic anomaly superimposed on resistive anomaly, and it is in these two areas that we have permission to dig exploratory trenches to see what, if anything, is there.
The field is currently ‘setaside’ and the weekend 22-23 June has been agreed as suitable, starting at 10.00am. The site is NT018 794 beside a bend in a small road linking Carriden to Linlithgow; parking on the corner of the field is possible.

New Resistivity Equipment (from Dave Jones)

The new equipment has arrived; it differs from the old equipment in that instead of manually recording readings a push of a button puts the reading into a data log which is capable of holding 15,000 readings – in excess of 35 20 by 20 metre squares.
Two discs contain the software programme that can be played into a PC running 95,98 or ME. The data is downloaded to a working RS232 serial port via a 9 pin ‘D’ connector.
On order to print out the data it is saved on a bitmap and printed using Adobe Elements or similar programme.
Assistance from anybody whose computer literacy is higher than mine and who is prepared to be involved in processing data will be welcomed.