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Excavation

Date 1 August 1997 - 31 August 1997

Event ID 546291

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/546291

NT 548 341 Further excavations were undertaken at Melrose Abbey in August 1997, following on from work on the chapter house conducted in the summer of 1996 (Ewart and Murray 1996). The intention was to further investigate the area of the chapter house and also two anomalies noted during the geophysical survey conducted in 1996. Five trenches in total were opened. The first trench was opened over a sub-circular anomaly to the W of the lay brothers' range, shown on the 1st edition OS map as the site of a tree. A deep pit, possibly a tree hole, was revealed, cut through 19th-century terracing deposits. A further three trenches were opened over the bank to the S of the site of the chapter house, revealing a monastic roof-shed drain along the line of the former chapter house S wall. Further evidence for the pits revealed in 1996, representing the robbing of the Period I chapter house floor, was also uncovered, confirming their relationship to the monastic, rather than post-monastic, use of the site. The findings have enlarged the understanding of the floor evidence in that a convincing relationship between the drain, defining the S side of the chapter house before the extension of the church, and the 15th-century N transept was revealed. A further trench was opened over a linear anomaly beside the Lavatorium, proving to be a 1920s planting bed.

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