Discussion and conclusions

Abstract

This section considers the Grassmarket area before the wall, the site and its setting through time, and later medieval/early post-medieval urban walls in southern Scotland. It is concluded that a town wall, generally lacking the sort of architectural detail that allows the chronology of buildings to be defined, will always pose problems of date when the documentary evidence is either unclear or uncollected. In the case of the Flodden Wall, the foundations for the original building were never exposed during the present excavations.