Newsletter – Issue 143, May 2003
Lectures
Nothing now until we start again on 15 October with Ian Suddaby on Ballyproir Beg, an Unenclosed Platform Settlement in Ireland.
Recent outings
1) Prestonpans
2) Borthwick Castle
Leith Excavation
The appeal for helpers to assist with the finds processing met with an excellent response, with no less than 12 members queuing up to come and sit in the middle of a building site and scrub bits of pottery. By working on two days per week, we were able to keep up with the supply of excavated objects and to take the load of recording them off the team of archaeologists. Our assistance was very much appreciated.
Castlehill, Penicuik
The good weather in April resulted in five successful ground resistance measuring days in which over 4500 readings were taken in metre squares and a considerable amount of timber was moved so that we had a clear run across the area. The plot of the readings shows a vague high resistance circle with a significantly lower resistance centre at the northeastern end. This aligns nicely with the circle drawn by Ainslie in the Castlehill plantation in the 1796 plan of the estates and confirms that there are some remnants of a structure existing. Some 85 metres to the southwest the still existing ditch that cuts right across the promontory appears, as expected, as a low resistance area with a considerable ‘high’ in the bank on the inner (N.E.) side and a more irregular ‘high’ in the outer bank. Both of these areas would seem to be candidates for excavation. Before doing so we will have, hopefully, a final session of resistivity, but this time, using the linear array to give a section view to a depth of 4 metres through both of these features. This is planned for Sunday, 25 May, and should be followed in June and July by the excavation. No date has yet been fixed for the start of the excavation.