Document record MAB57184 - ACADEMY SHOPPING CENTRE

Excavation carried out by Aberdeen City Council Archaeological Unit in 1996 in advance of development of the Academy Shopping Centre recorded medieval remains.

Excavation carried out by Aberdeen City Council Archaeological Unit in 1996 in advance of development of the Academy Shopping Centre recorded medieval remains. The excavation uncovered the basement or cellar of a medieval building, measuring 8.2m long and about 5m wide. It was originally constructed in the 13th or early 14th century, of large granite boulders bonded with pink clay and small stones. It was probably initially accessed by a set of wooden steps. The remains of these steps were excavated, and sockets in an adjacent wall indicated where horizontal beams were inserted making the treads for these stairs. In the late 14th or early 15th century a clay ramp replaced these steps, and a clay floor was laid within the building. Very little demolition material was present and so it is not known whether this structure was originally just a basement or whether it had at one time had a one or two-storey building on top of it. No trace of this building, which may have been a town house, appears on the earliest map of Aberdeen drawn by Parson James Gordon in 1661. The land, now called Caberstone Croft, passed from the Dominicans after the Reformation (c 1560) to Marischal College and was used exclusively for gardening and agriculture until the late 18th century when the college sold the land for housing. Other features excavated on this site include two post- medieval ditches and an 18th-century boundary wall. Most of the site was covered with about 1.5m of 18th to 19th-century garden soil. Finds from the excavations included only small amounts of pottery, a few ceramic floor tile fragments, early vessel glass, later bottle glass, building materials, clay pipes, two coins and animal bones. The finds from this site are in the collections of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums.

CAMERON, A, 2016, FIVE SITES IN THE ENVIRONS OF MEDIEVAL ABERDEEN (Bibliographic reference). SAB7012.

Record last edited

Jan 3 2024 4:10PM