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The Pit Alignment at Eskbank Nurseries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

John Barber ,
P. Strong ,
I. Mate ,
S. W. Bailey ,
B. Moffat ,
H. Anderson  and
A. Hepburn
John Barber
Affiliation:
Central Excavation Unit, Scottish Development Department (Ancient Monuments), 3–11 Melville Street, Edinburgh EH3 7QD
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Extract

Eskbank Nurseries, a market garden allotment some 200 m long and 30 to 40 mwide, lies at approximately 70 m OD on a relatively level terraceoverlooking the south bank of the river North Esk (fig. 1). The excavatedarea is centred on NT320660 and lies within the two superimposed Roman campsfirst noted as crop marks by St Joseph in 1965 and subsequently excavated byMaxfield in 1972. Her excavation areas I and II were sited to investigate apit alignment, visible on the aerial photographs and plotted by her(Maxfield 1974, 142, fig. 1). In the event no pits were discovered byexcavation, a fact attributable to an unfavourable combination of weatherand soil conditions (Maxfield 1974, 150). The pit alignment did not, ofcourse, appear as a crop mark in the deep market-garden soils of theNurseries but, by extrapolation of Maxfield's plot, it was clear that itmust cross the northern half of the allotment, possibly intersecting thenorth ditch of the earlier of the Roman camps (Maxfield's Camp A) on thewest edge of the site.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , December 1985 , pp. 149 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1985

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