Professor Ian Ralston
Projects
5. Further work:
The writer has hesitated to write up a definitive account of this project, given the rather unsatisfactory conclusion that can be reached without fuller excavation of the NW garden of The Brae, and he would recommend that the balance of the project budget is retained by the Burghead Headland Trust to enable this to take place when the restoration project at the Brae goes ahead. Although there are no guarantees that further work at the Brae would provide definite dating and/or coherent structural evidence, to the writer this would the most economical way of finding out about at least parts of the triple rampart system at Burghead. It is suggested that the results of that work, for which Mr Gilbert Fraser has given tentative permission, should be combined with fuller analysis e.g. of the finds mentioned here.
St Aethan’s cemetery, of course, could not be touched, and the only and chancy alternative as a means of dating Burghead’s outer works would be a major trench along the line of Grant Steet itself, clearly a much more substantial undertaking.
6. References
Complete references will be cited in the final report. Key papers on Burghead are reviewed in Ralston 2004.
Ralston, I. B. M. 2004 The Hill-Forts of Pictland since ‘The Problem of the Picts’. Rosemarkie: Groam House Museum Papers. 54pp.
7. Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Cath and Ken Millar, Dan Ralph, and Molly Fraser of the Burghead Trust, and all the other members of the Trust who facilitated the fieldwork and arranged access to the various parcels of land considered here. I am grateful to Major Hugh Young, Edinburgh, for permission to examine the ‘lainie’ adjacent to the scheduled area surrounding the Burghead Well, and to Mr Gilbert Fraser for access to the gardens associated with The Brae in Grant Street and to Mr Lloyd Cormie for his perseverance with our invasion of his property on Church Street. Mr Magnus Kirby of CFA Archaeology Ltd, Musselburgh, acted as Assistant Director and was also a very competent driver of the mini-digger. Dr Michael Cressey of CFA Archaeology Ltd, Musselburgh, sampled the thin soil horizon associated with the wall and ditch cutting in the garden at The Brae; sadly this proved on analysis not to be polleniferous. The project was also aided by advice and practical help from Mr Ian Shepherd, archaeological adviser to Moray Council, by Professor Kevin Edwards, Department of Geography and Environment, University of Aberdeen, by Dr Celeste Ray, University of the South, Tennessee, USA and by Mr Derek Alexander, National Trust for Scotland. The Edinburgh students who took part in the project were Nikki Farquhar (who acted as assistant), Geoff Waters, Hazel Bell, Taija Pesonen, Radoslaw Sergeant, Peter Cowburn, and Jem Heinemeier.