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During March and April 2004, four trenches were excavated by ACC Archaeological Unit at Torry Point Battery (NJ90NE0013), a coastal defence battery built between 1859 and 1861. Trench 1 was positioned just within the gate to the battery, in the area of a range of buildings used during the military period as storerooms. Trench 2 was positioned in the area of a building used in the first period of the battery as an infirmary and latterly as a Royal Artillery gun store. Trenches 3 and 4 were located to determine whether gun emplacements survived underground. Well preserved archaeological remains were uncovered within trench 1 where remains of four 'rooms' were excavated. The west wall of these rooms was the boundary or curtain wall around the Battery and as it was only possible (for safety reasons) to position the trench 1m from this wall, the complete width of the building was not excavated. Scars on the interior face of this curtain wall corresponded to partition walls excavated within the archaeological trench. Utensil store: The southernmost room (the 'utensil store') was 3.5 x 2m internally. All walls were constructed of brick and stone with mortar bonding. The foundations were a maximum of 0.4m deep and the area within the foundations had been filled in with demolition material which consisted mainly of brick, stone and wood. Large stones protruding from one of the walls formed a scarcement, probably for the suspension of a wooden floor within the room. This was the only room in which this type of scarcement was found. Bedding store: North of this room was the 'bedding store', 4.1 x 2m. Due to the original function of this room to store bedding, a small fireplace had been constructed in the north wall of the room. It was lined with bricks and was 0.4 x 0.3m in size. The bricks were heavily burnt and the fireplace was filled with coal and burnt material. Air was fed into the fireplace through a flue which led to a vent in the east wall. Within the fill of this vent, fragments of iron grate were found, which presumably had covered an opening in the exterior face of the wall. A large granite block was probably a step into the room, and a rectangular depression in the east wall was probably a threshold. Within the room, and in front of the fireplace was an insubstantial wall faced only on the south side (into the room). It was not a load-bearing wall and may have been a dwarf wall to protect the contents of the room from intense heat and smoke. The room to the north of the 'bedding store' was bounded by walls to the south and east. The full extent of this room was not within the excavation area, however. The east wall had been cut through to insert a drain, presumably a surface water drain taking water from the gutter and from the roofs of the buildings to a main drain on the exterior of the battery. This room originally consisted of two rooms, a small ash store and a coal store. These can be seen on contemporary plans of the battery and the scars seen on the curtain wall. Latterly it appears that the wall between the ash and coal stores had been removed, probably to provide a larger room when these buildings were used for accommodation for families. These store rooms formed one of two lines of rooms which were separated from each other by a concrete path. A gutter on its west side took surface water from this path. The path was made from blocks of poured concrete with the gutter moulded into these blocks. The fill of the gutter included small fragments of demolition material and small metal fittings. It appeared that the gutter had not been cleaned out regularly, as there was a heavy compacted black silty deposit in its base. Trench 2 was excavated in the area of a building originally used as an infirmary and later as a Royal Artillery gun store. A large trench was opened and initially it appeared that building remains would be found. Unfortunately all walls had been completely robbed out and large amounts of building materials scattered over the whole area. These included a small number of granite blocks, lumps of poured concrete including fragments from a path and gutter, bricks and mortar. At the west end of the trench, a square area of mortared granite blocks was probably the base for a stair shown on the contemporary plans which led from the infirmary up to the cookhouse, a building which is still standing at the time of writing. A sub-circular area of stones and mortar was probably the base for the water/oil tank which is also seen on plans. This was confirmed when a section of lead pipe was uncovered leading from and mortared into the underside of this tank base. Trenches 3 and 4 were excavated to the east of the battery in an area which was occupied by gun emplacements in the early 20th century. The excavation revealed that these had been completely removed and the area dug down c 4m for the disposal of building materials, particularly stone, brick, wood and metal. In Trench 4 a large fragment of brick wall, concreted at its base, was uncovered but it was quickly established that this was rubble, not part of an adjacent building which had fallen in this location. A metalled surface was traced in part of the trench. It was on the same level as the current 'parade ground' surface. The original 'parade ground' extended further to the east than it now does, and this can be seen on the contemporary plans of the battery. The finds from this site are in the collections of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums.
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Historic Environment Records (HER) 
Aberdeen City
HER -
NJ90NE0256 - TORRY BATTERY