EHG6132 - Trial trenching - new holiday cabins and services, Kirkhill

A trial trenching evaluation was undertaken by Avon Archaeology (Highland) in 2023 in advance of groundworks for six new holiday letting cabins with access and associated facilities on land 90m northwest of Braeside Cottage, Kirkhill, Inverness. The evaluation was required to establish the presence or absence of significant buried archaeological deposits and features within the footprint of the proposed development area, in particular buried features, deposits or finds associated with prehistoric settlement-related activity. Fourteen evaluation trenches were opened within the development area but all bar two were archaeologically sterile apart from modern drainage/service features. The two remaining trenches revealed a single undated posthole and a very truncated ditch/gully, also undated. No significant finds of any kind, either stratified or unstratified, were recovered. The evaluation trenches indicated that the overwhelming majority of the site was archaeologically sterile but contained seemingly isolated and truncated features of unknown date. On the basis of the evidence provided by the evaluation trenches it was concluded that the archaeological potential of the site was low and, furthermore, the likelihood that significant archaeological deposits of equal or greater importance are preserved elsewhere on the site, outside the areas evaluated by trenching, was similarly low. In view of this no further archaeological mitigation was recommended. <1>