EHG5586 - Watching brief - A9 Dalraddy to Slochd GI Works

An Archaeological Watching Brief was carried out by GUARD Archaeology Limited, on behalf of Raeburn Drilling, during ground investigations undertaken on the Dalraddy to Slochd section of the A9 Dualling project. A total of 86 trial pits, 7 soak-away pits and 6 borehole location spots were monitored across the project area which covered a 25 kilometre stretch alongside the existing A9 road corridor. The section stretched 4 km south-west to 13.5 km north-west of Aviemore. Apart from the northernmost 1.5 km, the site was located within Cairngorms National Park. The work was undertaken between 13 February and 18 April 2017 in a variety of weather conditions including sun, snow and rain. The Project area was sub-divided into smaller areas with sixteen of these requiring monitoring due to the presence of trial pits, soak-away pits and borehole locations which required ground levelling to provide a safe working platform. These included areas 2-4 and 6-18. During the excavation work no significant archaeological features or artefacts were encountered. However, three areas were noted to have possible unrecorded archaeological features, including area 2 which contained the remains of two stone-built features and a possible post-Medieval corn drying kiln, areas 10 which contained the remains of a drystone wall and a possible enclosure and area 18 which contained a rectangular earthwork which might be related to the nearby Military Road. None of these were impacted upon during the present work programme. <1>