Archaeology Notes

Event ID 667722

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/667722

NJ42NW 1 4380 2558.

(NJ 4381 2557) Hall of Tolophin (NR) (Site of)

OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd ed., (1902)

The Hall of Tolophin is shown on an estate survey of 1777 as an oblong structure, NW-SE, c. 60 by 45 feet (Simpson 1930).

The Ordnance Survey Name Book (ONB, 1867) describes it as the former summer residence of 'the Lairds of Craig' and Simpson (1930) quotes a 1633 reference to its ownership by the Gordons of Craig. The tenant of Tolophin Farm, sometime before 1867 cleared rubbish from the site and found a paved floor, marks of fire, ashes, pointed slates from the walls and freestone walling. It is described as circa 15th century.

Name Book 1867; W D Simpson 1930.

No trace of the Hall of Tolophin remains. The published site falls on the slopes of a small natural eminence rising from a burn; the obvious situation for the Hall is on the summit at NJ 4380 2558, now occupied by the turf-covered footings of a ruined building, 8.0m x 4.0m.

Re-surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 6 October 1967.

As noted by the officers of the Ordnance Survey, there are no visible remains of the Hall of Tolophin. The footings of a rectangular building lie on the top of a low knoll 290m NE of the abandoned farmstead of Tolophin (NJ42NW 19); the knoll is bounded by the burn of Stripe of Bogs on the N and E, and by boggy ground on the W and S. The building measures 10.9m from ESE to WNW by 5.2m transversely over a grass-grown bank 1.8m in thickness and 0.4m in height. No stone is visible, but probing indicates a stone core about 0.15m below the turf.

Visited by RCAHMS (IF, ARG), 25 April 1996.