ARGYLL, SCOTLAND—The Tigh Caol Inn, a small pub or Drovers’ Inn that sat near a bridge in rural Scotland 200 years ago, is being excavated by a team made up of members of the local history society, students, and volunteers. “A nearby bridge called the Witches Bridge carries (Thomas) Telford’s road over the burn. To the north of this bridge, along the main road edge about a mile from the site of the inn, lies a foreboding large quartzite glacial erratic known as Cailleach Glas, which translates as the ‘grey old woman’ or ‘grey haired witch,’” Donald Adamson, GUARD Archaeology Chairman, told Culture 24. The team has uncovered low walls and the remains of a bench or raised platform, and a stone-paved central hearth. The artifacts include shards of eighteenth-century bottle glass, delft pottery, Staffordshire Slipware, hand-painted white glazed fine-wares, and pieces of a high quality, clear-glass goblet. A nineteenth-century coin was also recovered, along with a piece of copper ally harness adorned with a double thistle design that may have been worn by a drover’s horse.
