EHG565 - Watching brief - Balmacara Square

A watching brief was carried out by M Wildgoose during the Summer of 2000 during the stripping out and refurbishment of the farm steading, including the former hay barn, and the excavation and clearing of the mill pond at Balmacara Square. The watching brief complemented the buildings survey carried out by Kirkdale Archaeology in 1997 (see EHG428) and the archaeological excavations carried out by M Wildgoose in 1997-8 (see EHG428 & EHG135). The steading and mill complex were undergoing perhaps their final metamorphosis into a multi-functional unit comprising housing, light industrial units and an interpretative and educational centre. In addition the mill pond, drained in the 1970's, was to be made water-tight and filled, and the surrounding area landscaped, providing a village green and recreational area for Balmacara Square. The watching brief was both a continuation and an extension of the archaeological investigations and was designed to add to, and in some cases clarify, the results of the buildings survey and the archaeological excavations. Its main aim being to extend the knowledge of how the rooms within the steading were originally constructed and used. The watching brief was not tightly structured being based around a set list of eight areas of interest with the archaeologist free to visit the site at any reasonable time during working hours. The bulk of the site works, and therefore the watching brief, were carried out between the 20th of January and the 12th of August 2000. The weather was, on the whole, good with the majority of the work being carried out in fine dry conditions. At no time was it necessary to hold up site works to recover vital information. During construction works within the pond the contractors cut a bypass channel for the stream which fed the mill pond. This cut revealed no archaeological remains whatsoever. The removal of the water from the old channel however allowed a close examination of the accumulated gravels at the north-west end of the mill pond. During this examination three undiagnostic pieces of clay pipe stem were recovered. More interestingly three pieces of flint and two pieces of Rum Bloodstone were also found. The flint can be found, in pebble form, on the beaches in the area. The bloodstone however occurs only, as its name suggests, on Rum and it's occurrence here almost certainly indicated the presence of an early prehistoric site up-stream of the mill dam. Towards the end of site works two service trenches were cut, from south-west to north-east, across the yard lying to the north-west of the steading. These trenches encountered no archaeological remains at all, however a bed of clean well sorted gravel was encountered. This gravel closely resembled that used to bed the cobbled floors in the phase 2 steading. The finding of this gravel deposit opens up the possibility that the washed gravels used to bed the cobbled floors, in both phases 2 and 3, were obtained on site, perhaps as a result of site leveling or during the cutting of foundations. <1>