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Field Visit
Date February 2016 - June 2017
Event ID 1040023
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1040023
The general assessment of the site has not changed. It occupies what appears to be a mound which is surrounded by a curtain wall that appears to have had round towers added. The dumping of spoil from the nearby coal mine has led to subsidence of the structure under pressure, especially on the SE, which juts out and has had to be conserved on a previous occasion to that in 2016. The mound, however, may be more apparent than real since the basement of the tower is covered by the mound which has presumably been built up against it in the post-medieval period, blocking the basement entrance located in the W wall that was revealed during conservation work. Close examination has shown that the roughly square tower was at least two storeys high and may have had a third floor in view of the well-formed intra-mural stair leading up from the second floor. Chamfered plinths that reduce the size of the upper floors by c 0.15m relieve the line of the rising tower and two small apertures, presumably to drain run off from the roof top were noted on the N and W at second floor level.
What had been interpreted as a fireplace on the W of the first floor is a stairwell with a gothic arched opening into it from the hall at first floor level. Both first and second floor have recessed fireplaces in the N side and were lit by windows on the S and possibly E, although the enlargement and squaring of the embrasures in the secondary phase have removed the openings in the primary phase at first floor level. At second floor the primary phase, angled ingos are evident to the E, S and W, despite the squared enlargement on the S. The openings in the E had previously been viewed as having some form of projecting turret on the evidence of raggles at second floor level. It is now clear that these projections are for the garderobes that occupied the S side of the opening in the thickness of the wall at both first and second floor. The coombed flags of the ceiling are visible at both levels and an aumbry is visible in the back wall of the chamber at second floor and one side of the stop for the door of the entrance from the main chamber. A recess in the corner of the second floor garderobe, which may be the fortuitous result of conservation, reuses a roughly dressed piece of sandstone that has a segment of a curved opening. The arc of the curve appears too great for a gunloop, but could come from window opening.
Externally there are the footings of ranges of buildings on the N and W, of which that to the W has been built against the tower leaving the cut raggles of two phases of roof line. This building must have provided direct access to the tower at first floor where the entrance passage may be detected with evidence of a coombed slab corbel and a return for a door stop at the inner end of the wall thickness. A separate entrance at ground floor was confirmed during conservation works when the ingo for a passage was revealed towards the N end of the W wall, providing separate basement access. The building on the N does not seem to have been joined to the tower in any visible way and must have been free standing.
The entrance to the enclosure is marked by the bar slot in the stub of wall on the WNW arc, the length of which indicates that it was a double-width entrance. It may be presumed that a yard occupied the NW corner of the enclosure in the return made by the tower and W range. Traces of two small round towers were still visible on the NE and SW, but gaps on the SE and NW account for the two missing ones that are previously recorded. There is a cell for a garderobe with part of its seating still in place in the thickness of the N curtain wall immediately adjacent to the NE tower. This type of close arrangement of tower and garderobe is more typical of 13th and 14th century work than 16th century towers, as suggested by an earlier authority, and suggests the curtain wall and towers are coeval with the tower. The tower itself may be dated to the 14th century from its gothic arch at the entrance to the stair to the first floor and the relative simplicity of the tower.
