Document record MAB57068 - 45-47 GALLOWGATE, ABERDEEN

Excavation in 1979 by Aberdeen City Council Archaeological Unit recorded a medieval frontage dating from the late 12th Century, comprising dumping, building then ditches and drains, fencing and cobbles.

Excavation in 1979 by Aberdeen City Council Archaeological Unit recorded a medieval frontage dating from the late 12th Century, comprising dumping, building then ditches and drains, fencing and cobbles. The excavation, undertaken in a pend opening on to Gallowgate, yielded a succession of fifteen occupation phases dating from the late 12th to the 19th century, with stratified deposits reaching circa 2.5 m deep. A period of dumping in the late 12th or 13th century was followed, as Gallowgate developed, by the construction of a building with a grooved sill-beam on a stone foundation. This had been destroyed by a ditch which was replaced by a wattle- lined drain, both near to a boundary, which was continued throughout the 14th century by a series of wattle fences. Later in the 14th century, two sill-beam structures were successively built on the site and a floor and wattle wall may have been part of a building or yard, all respecting this boundary. Only fragments of the buildings were in the excavated area, the rest having been cut away by the later cellars. In the 15th and 16th centuries a pend was established on the boundary, with three superimposed paths, the uppermost made of well- set cobbles. This appeared to have become an internal passageway in the 19th-century building, which was demolished several years prior to excavation. The finds from this site are in the collections of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums. See also NJ90NW0160 for further excavation, 45-75 Gallowgate.

COUNCIL FOR SCOTTISH ARCHAEOLOGY, 1980, DISCOVERY AND EXCAVATION IN SCOTLAND 1979, p.11 (Bibliographic reference). SAB8207.

MURRAY, H, 1984, EXCAVATION OF 45-47 GALLOWGATE, ABERDEEN. PSAS 114 (1983-4) P303-13, PSAS 114, 303-13 (Bibliographic reference). SAB1262.

DENNISON, E, 1997, HISTORIC ABERDEEN: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF DEVELOPMENT. THE SCOTTISH BURGH SURVEY, p. 40-3 (Bibliographic reference). SAB4057.

ROY, M, 2021, PITS AND BOOTS: EXCAVATION OF MEDIEVAL AND POST-MEDIEVAL BACKLANDS UNDER THE BON ACCORD CENTRE, ABERDEEN (Bibliographic reference). SAB3168.

Record last edited

Feb 24 2022 11:15AM