Waste proves its value to experts

The former military parade ground is a public park

A "treasure trove" of 18th Century domestic waste has been unearthed at a town's park.

Fragments of wine bottles, pottery, clay pipes and buttons have been recovered by archaeologists at The Parade in Fort William in Lochaber.

Evidence houses were burned down to give government troops a line of fire against attacking Jacobites has also been found.

The site was a parade ground for a fort, which is now a ruin.

Dr Tony Pollard, of Glasgow University, is leading the first archaeological investigation of the two sites.

I've looked in the finds room and it looks like a shipwreck with all the stuff found Dr Tony Pollard

He said: "The digs at The Parade has had a fair rate of success.

"There is a treasure trove of 18th Century domestic waste.

"We've now got more archaeology than we can deal with in the time we've got. I've looked in the finds room and it looks like a shipwreck with all the stuff found."

Artefacts were recovered from middens and a burn that used to run down the middle of The Parade but was later reverted to a stone drain and buried.

Railway yard

Concentrations of charcoal have also been discovered.

Dr Pollard said records tell of how dwellings in a settlement called Maryburgh, that grew up near the fort, were torched before Jacobites besieged the fort in 1746.

Homes nearest the government outpost were built of wattle and daub and turf to make them easier to destroy in the event of an attack, giving soldiers a clear line of fire.

Archaeological investigations at the ruined fort have not been so successful.

So far only the remains of a railway yard have been found but a trench is being dug on a beach next to the fort.

This has led to the recovery of a button of the Inverness-shire Rifle Volunteers.

Dr Pollard said the volunteers were in Fort William in 1859 and the find dated from the fort's "last gasps" as a military installation.