The remains of Saughton Hall, a once-grand manor house (Figure 1), rest within the southern part of Saughton Park in Edinburgh, bounded by Balgreen Road to the east, the Water of Leith to the south, and Stevenson Drive to the north. The original 17th-century mansion was likely a three-storey house with a stair turret tower, approached through an avenue of yew trees (the three surviving trees are over 500 years old). Like so many major houses of its kind, it slowly fell into disrepair over the centuries and was demolished in 1952. The site was archaeologically investigated recently by AOC Archaeology, with community involvement, as part of a Parks for People Heritage Lottery Fund Application to restore Saughton Park (Figure 2).
The works were undertaken on behalf of and guided by the City of Edinburgh Council Archaeology Service and commissioned by the City of Edinburgh Council and Ironside Farrar. These works included a volunteer-focused community archaeological dig in 2014 within the putative location of the hall, which was succeeded by archaeological test pits and trenches to determine the potential extent of the hall. The final phase of works, in 2017, took the form of a monitored archaeological strip, map and record exercise, which confirmed the earlier community-led fieldwork’s identification of foundations of the hall. As
