A PUBLIC meeting to let Kilwinning residents see the finds of the Abbey dig will be held on Monday, October 4.
Tom Rees, the archaeologist, along with his team from Rathmell Archaeology will be revealing their finds at the Abbey Church Hall from 7pm.
Historian and preservation society member Jim Kennedy will also give a talk on his hunt for fragments of Kilwinning Abbey that have been used in other buildings around Kilwinning.
There will also be the opportunity for volunteers to find out about the aims of the project over the winter months.
Here, Tom Rees gives us his overview of the dig:
The first dig season exceeded our expectations, we had excellent weather throughout and very strong volunteering that allowed us to keep a full 20 person team of volunteers on-site every day we worked.
In total some 82 individuals were given the opportunity to work on the field team and more helped staff the heritage centre during the dig.
During the five weeks there were at least 1000 visitors to the Abbey Tower Heritage Centre, not including Doors Open Day, further we had six guided school visits and three work experience students on-site.
On the archaeology front, the target was to expose features reburied in the 196’s within the cloister; west and south ranges; and the nave.
The cloister trenches showed the area to be overlain by post-Abbey yards and walls, but we located the foundations of the cloister arcade (covered walkway). Work in the west range was rather fruitless; the interior had been cleared at an earlier date.
By contrast, excavations in the south range demonstrated that the wall footings visible today date from the 1960s. Two stretches of substantial medieval walling were located at depth within the ‘modern’ range; these are surviving elements of the actual eating hall.
We also found four post-holes to the west of the range, suggesting a timber structure may have stood here that may prove to be contemporary with, or even earlier than, the Abbey buildings.
Excavations in the south aisle of the nave uncovered several stretches of wall that are not medieval, in-filling between the piers of the south aisle. These, along with a raised internal floor, are elements of the first reformed church set up within the derelict nave.
This church (c.1562 to 1774) used much of the surviving medieval fabric within its walls, retaining the height of the original nave but of a more modest size in plan.
We have also dug outside the Abbey grounds. A trench was sunk on the line of a medieval ditch to the south, while test-pits were excavated in gardens to search for artefacts which might pinpoint more medieval activity.
All the spoil from the trenches in the Abbey has also been riddled to recover finds from the 1960s reinstated ground – medieval material recovered includes pottery and glass, animal bone, and a graffiti gaming board on a roofing slate.
Author: Lorraine Howard | Source: The Irvine Herald [October 01, 2010]