ANCIENT GATEWAY UNCOVERED AT CASTLE
08:50 - 31 July 2007 An Ancient gateway has been revealed near the entrance to a north-east castle after lying hidden beneath the ground for centuries.
The discovery was only made after gardeners at Leith Hall, near Kennethmont in Aberdeenshire, kept bashing their mowers on a buried rock that had gradually surfaced on the sweeping lawns.
Castle owners the National Trust for Scotland decided to dig into the archives and discovered an estate map from 1758, which revealed an elaborate courtyard had stood at the entrance of its drive.
The long-forgotten access was apparently flanked by two buildings, at locations that matched the problem rock and other mysterious square marks which were becoming increasingly visible beside an oak tree.
The features had become so prominent this year, due to a combination of the weather and the ground sinking, that the grass-cutter resorted to marking the stones with yellow paint to avoid damaging the mower.
Murray Archaeological Services were called in to carry out a landscape survey of the area, and experts Hilary and Charles Murray spent five days painstakingly excavating the area between the car park and the mansion.
Piece by piece, the archaeologists revealed the finely-built walls of the building shown on the old map, plus delicate fragments of handmade glass and substantial bits of roofing slates, probably quarried at nearby Glens of Foudland 350 years ago.
NTS regional archaeologist Shannon Fraser said the buildings could have been porters' lodges or ornate garden pavilions, adding: "Most exciting of all, there is a very unusual and intriguing water feature in one corner - a circular stone structure like a well, but only a few feet deep that has craftsman-carved sandstone channels leading from it."
The levels of the stone channels suggest one could have been a supply and the other an overflow, designed to keep a water supply in the rounded basin. The team believe it may have been part of a grotto but its exact use remains a mystery.
The dig has proved a major added visitor attraction at Leith Hall which, with its hillside garden, is already regarded as one of the north-east's timeless gems.
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