Archaeology Notes

Event ID 696384

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/696384

NR74NW 6 7085 4832.

(NR 7083 4832) Old Largie Castle (NR) (Ruin)

OS 6" map, (1924)

Old Largie Castle (Site). When the officers of the Ordnance Survey visited this site about the year 1868 they reported that "only a small portion of the side wall" of the castle survived, and that the remainder of the area was occupied by the farmsteading of High Rhunahaorine. This farmsteading, apparently a structure of late 18th- or early 19th century date, has since become completely ruinous and its fragmentary remains now incorporate no recognisable portions of an early castle.

The MacDonalds of Largie, descendants of the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, have been in possession of estates in Kintyre since about the middle of the 15th century. The site now under discussion was presumably an early seat of the family in this locality, but since at least as early as the end of the 18th century the principal family residence has been situated at Tayinloan. Old Largie Castle is said to have been "merely a fortified house, strong but plain in character, and of small size (Bede 1861).

RCAHMS 1971, visited 1965; Name Book 1869; C Bede 1861.

Within the ruins of the farmstead there are two features remaining probably from the old castle. They are a cellar in the SW end of the farmstead, of which no structural details remain due to choking by debris, and short stretches of broken walling up to 2.2m high on the N and E sides of the farm which would appear to be the remains of the original barmkin.

Visited by OS (J B) 16 December 1977.