The Mysteries of Gilmerton Cove
Back in the mid-80s I lived in Edinburgh while studying geology
at the University of Edinburgh (happy days!).
I would like to think that during that time I got to know the city quite
well and I certainly made sure investigate many dimly lit, subterranean
hangouts (Bannermans comes to mind as a place frequently visited but full of
hazy memories), however I never heard of the Mystery of Gilmerton Cove.
Gilmerton is a suburb on the south side of the city and is
home to a series of caves or tunnels that are not on the main tourist
route. The tunnels were for long assumed
to have been the work of an 18th century blacksmith, George
Paterson. After having been caught
selling liqueur from them on a Sabbath (he blamed this on his wife) he claimed
that he had dug the labyrinth over a five year period as an underground
dwelling for his family. There are a
number of “rooms” in the tunnels with stone tables, benches and even some that
look like stone beds. In the walls there are markings suggesting that some of
the rooms were separated by, presumably wooden, doors and curiously there are
various skylights at strategic places.
The Cove was well known in the late 1700s with local
historian Rev. Thomas Whyte noting their unusual construction. Various
recordings have been made since with the first investigation undertaken by F.
R. Coles, Assistant Keeper of the Museum in Edinburgh in 1867. He described the construction of the caves in
an article in the Scotsman in 1906 as having been dug using pointed chisels and
further commented that it would have been unlikely for Paterson to have been
able to create them by himself in just 5 years.
If not Paterson, then who had constructed the tunnels? The area is one that has long been associated
with mining and as far back as the 16th C there would have been
ample and adequate labour to have dug them but for what purpose?
The walls today are without marks of soot and with virtually
no inscriptions apart from one small cross it is hard to imagine what went on
in them. Dating structures like these is
notoriously difficult and so all we can do is compare them to similar
structures elsewhere and better understand the layout of the caves themselves.
 |
| sketch plan of caves |
In
the 1970s excavations revealed blocked passageways suggesting that the tunnels
extend beyond the current layout. So
finally this is where the geophysics comes in.
About a year ago Dr Simon Shackley and Prof Stuart Haszeldine at the
University of Edinburgh asked if I thought any geophysical technique might be
appropriate for exploring the extensions to the caves and I suggested that
ground penetrating radar would be our best bet in this very noisy urban
situation. The main problems for the
site are that to the west is built up with housing, to the north three shops
have been constructed over the tunnels and to the east is a very busy main
road. Combined with this the pavement and road areas are riddled with drains,
pipes and buried cables. Not ideal for
high quality geophysics!
The NERC Geophysics Equipment Pool provided a Sensors and
Software Radar and we used this with 500Mhz antenna. A station spacing of 10cm along lines was
used and we placed lines at 30cm apart down the pavement and as far into the road
as we could safely do. The results somewhat surprised me, especially those on
the pavements either side of the main road.
Here reflections were recorded in the radar data that are consistent
with a void-like structure at 2-3m in the subsurface.
These seem to align across the road, however
the significant gap in data where we could not survey still means that we do
not really know what the extension might look like. At the other end of the tunnels the picture
is not so clear as the ground is very uneven and to achieve better quality data
would require a significant amount of ground preparation. So a little bit further with the mystery but
certainly no great Scottish enlightenment yet – just like the old days coming
out of Bannermans.
We hope to be back and continue the work but as with most projects,
funding is now needed plus cooperation with the council to get a few hours of
road closure would help greatly.
