Bronze Age Cremation Cemetery Re-examined
In the early 1900's building work to the rear of 73 Nelson Street, Largs, revealed a series of Bronze Age cremation burials. The discovery came to the attention of local antiquarian Robert Munro who wrote a detailed account, published in Archaeologia (Munro, 1910). Even at the time it was deemed unusual; the primary feature was a circular, stone-lined cist, from which seven bucket-shaped urns were recovered, reflecting a form of communal burial rite almost unparalleled in the Scottish Bronze Age. Surrounding this central cist were "a few" isolated single collared urn burials. The burials were located within a gravel mound, the levelling of which prompted the discoveries. During the removal of the spoil another find was made, a perforated stone hammer that may have been contained within another urn.
The removal of the existing late 19th century building and its replacement with flats in the summer of 2007 allowed archaeologists from Rathmell Archaeology Ltd a chance to obtain valuable information relating to the original discovery. This work was required as a condition of planning consent by North Ayrshire Council, following advice from the West of Scotland Archaeology Service indicating that the proposed development raised a significant archaeological issue. The location of the cists and urns could be roughly estimated from the information given in Munro's paper, but it was hoped that sufficient evidence would remain to pinpoint the findspot more accurately. There was also the possibility that additional urn burials would remain undiscovered beyond the limits of the original investigations.
No new burials came to light, but archaeological monitoring proved far from fruitless. Topsoil stripping revealed the location and extent of the gravel mound, and uncovered three shallow, circular pits measuring roughly 0.8m in diameter and between 0.2m and 0.3 in depth. They produced finds of late 19th century/early 20th century, and are probably the truncated remains of the pits which contained the satellite urn burials. Unfortunately, our predecessors made an excellent job of scouring out the early fills and salvaging the finds - while it had been hoped that further information might be gleaned as a result of shoddy turn-of-the-twentieth-century excavation techniques, it turned out that earlier activities on the site had dealt with the archaeology extremely efficiently. The photograph below shows view of the site at Nelson Street after topsoil stripping. The gravel spread in the foreground is the remains of the mound described by Munro, while the blue flags mark the possible location of urn-burials.
While attention understandably focussed on the mound itself, the work at Nelson Street also extended beyond the limits of the mound, giving a valuable opportunity to examine this feature in an albeit-limited wider landscape context. Located slightly to the north-west of the mound, two probable post-holes were uncovered. One of these still had packing stones in situ, and produced a fairly convincing piece of worked quartz.
Though prehistoric activity on the site was the focus of the archaeological investigation, the site also revealed an interesting feature that was much more recent in origin. Uncovered close to the rear stair of one of the demolished houses was a well, of drystone rubble construction. It was around 3.4m in depth and appears to have been contemporary with the building that occupied the western part of the site.