Excavation

Date 1977

Event ID 1010527

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1010527

Lanark Castle is situated on a natural hill, which in all probability was scarped during the building of the castle. The base of the hill now has a diameter of about 90m and the summit about 50m. The castle would have had considerable natural protection because of the precipitous slopes especially on the S and W sides, much of which is now wooded.

The flat summit is now (and has been for two centuries) a bowling green with three associated buildings. As a new club house was to be built, a small rescue excavation (of an area measuring 15 by 6m - see plan) was carried out in 1977 by members of Lanark Archaeological Society for the Department of the Environment (DoE).

The royal castle seems to have existed in the time of David I (1124-53) and was perhaps built on the site of an earlier fort. By the late 13th century the castle may no longer have been occupied but instead used as a prison. However, the Scots parliament is known to have met at the castle in 1293, 1294 and 1295. In 1310 Robert I gained possession of the town and castle, but it is not known to what use he put the latter. After the removal of turf, modern path material and top soil, a thick layer of yellow sand was encountered; this was most probably used during the laying of the bowling green. Below this was a layer of burnt material - a succession of thin turf layers and intermediate layers of silty material containing charcoal and patches of burnt clay. The pieces of charcoal were all of small diameter and unlikely to have been from structural timbers or from a palisade. The burnt material was probably formed by regular burning of the hillside to destroy heather and gorse to facilitate the growth of pasture for grazing animals. This may have happened during or after the occupation of the castle. Near the bottom of the burnt material were two areas of flat stones, which could have formed a path at one time. Associated with these stones were a few small nails and the only two pieces of stratified pottery on the site. These were of 12th - 13th century date. (Other, unstratified sherds were possibly of 14th century date, though the majority dated from the 17th - 18th century.) Underlying the burnt material was natural, undisturbed clay.

It is likely that the area of the mound summit has been extended during the laying of the bowling green, implying that any palisade trench and associated structures were some distance W of the present slope and hence not in the area excavated.

J H Lewis 1978