Archaeology at Burlington Heights

Since 1991, John Triggs, director of archaeology at Dundurn, has led several digs in the Burlington Heights area of Dundurn Park and Harvey Park with the help of McMaster University archaeology students. In 1993, the Ontario Heritage Foundation helped fund some of these digs with a two-year grant for archaeological research into the military features of the area. Some of the Triggs group's most important finds to date are:

• Richard Beasley's summer kitchen in the formal gardens on the bay side of the Castle.
• Richard Beasley's log cabin under the Cockpit Theatre.
• A grandstand and baseball diamond, and MacNab's 1.2 hectare (3 acre) garden, both in the area where the Pavilion now stands.
• About 4,500 objects, including military buttons, nails, window glass, bullets, mammal bones (from food) and Native American arrowheads in the two different earthworks in the first line of defence.
• Richard Beasley's wharf below the Heights by the bay.