ABSTRACT
The church was, as described above, demolished piecemeal before the final clearance and sealing with a mound of stones (Figures 8.1 and 8.2). What is less clear is where the stone was reused or deposited, other than in the walling north of the churchyard. In Chapter 2, it was noted in a lawsuit of 1566 there is mention of ‘ane auld house besyde the Kirksted of Hirsell’ (p 19), and in the same document mention is made of the new house of Hirsel, so there could have been domestic buildings nearby which reused the stone. In the north-west of the excavated area of the site (170195/835-850) the modern ploughing revealed a particularly stony area and here rubble had been used to create hard core surfaces (Figure 8.3) in one place overlying an enclosure. The first evidence for this feature was found in the 1979 excavation in the westernmost trench of the site, where it was seen as a cobble bank (C6) with a stone revetment (Figure 8.4). When the area to the east of this trench was excavated in 1980, the encircling ditch filled with stones (C1124) was not very clear and had been more disturbed, but its line was clearly demarcated in 1982 (Figures 8.5, 8.6 and 8.7).
