Publication Account

Date 1996

Event ID 1016438

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016438

One of Grampian's earliest medieval earthworks, this flat-topped mound, 36.6m by 45.7m, rises 9m above an enclosing ditch, 15m wide, itself retained by an earthen bank. Formerly interpreted as a shellkeep, a motte with a curtain wall, excavations in the 1970s established that the wall around the summit was a late 18th-century dyke built by the usual 'zealous agriculturalists' . The original 13th century defences may have been a turf rampart rather than a palisade. The motte was built by the Durwards.

The footings of a rectangular manor house, Halton House, on the mound summit, date from the late 15th century. The original cobbled causeway was traced across the ditch and winding up the northeast side of the motte. The water in the wide ditch may have been con trolled by a sluice system, now vanished.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Aberdeen and North-East Scotland’, (1996).