Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Archaeology Notes

Event ID 688357

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/688357

NO43SE 10.00 46475 30427

NO43SE 10.01 NO 4648 3040 Coast Battery

(NO 4650 3045). Broughty Castle on site of (NAT)

Broughty Castle (NR)

OS 1:10000 map (1974)

Broughty Castle, built c.1496 and allowed to fall into decay after 1603, has been completely restored and is in use as an Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) Depot.

The E block is all that remains of the original keep. The castellated building attached to the NW is completely modern as is the circular tower contained in the re-entrant angle of the two blocks. The foundations of the main block show the original masonry, but the rest of the walls are faced with cement. The battlements are modern as are the courtyard walls.

A print of 1831 and a photograph of 1853 in Dundee Reference Library show the shell of the keep and the courtyard wall with two towers. The keep was unbattlemented. (A J Warden 1882)

It is possible that there were pre-1496 defences on the rock.

Visited by OS (JLD) 30 April 1958

Installation of electric cables for floodlighting involved the excavation of 103m of cable trench on Castle Green and 31m in the courtyard. The trenches were 30cm wide at ground level and narrowed to 15cm to 25cm in the bottom; they varied in depth from 30cm to 50cm.

The Castle Green trenches showed extensive make-up/terracing deposits associated with the 1860s refortification of the site and 20th-century landscaping. The mound on which the 19th-century castle sits is built up of quarried sandstone and some revetting of the bedrock was seen. To the E of the ramp, the remains of a rubble-filled bunker were found on the site of the dynamo and engine rooms. A corner of the foundations/roof of another bunker was also seen at the N end of the ramp, and a gravel path crosses eastern Castle Green N to S.

Inside the courtyard, the foundations of a 19th-century guardhouse were revealed and a substantial 2m-thick wall running NE to SW; this may represent the remains of a mid-16th-century angled tower known to have stood in this area. The majority of courtyard deposits were make-up for the battery and showed frequent re-surfacing of the courtyard.

Sponsor: Tayside Enterprise.

F M C Baker 1993.

NO 465 304 A small trench was excavated in January 2003 immediately N of the castle, E of the approach road, to investigate an area of sudden subsidence. A large pit was found cut into loose gravel, and appeared to have been inadequately backfilled. This pit is thought most likely to be from the extraction of a single large post, possibly a flagpole.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

G Ewart 2003.

People and Organisations

References