Field Visit

Date March 2017 - June 2017

Event ID 1040026

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1040026

HES Special Survey 2017

This castle, which was previously classified as a motte and bailey, dominates the watershed between the valleys of the Carron and Endrick rivers and is situated on the SW end of a natural ridge above a boggy gully in which runs a small burn. Manmade ponds are arranged around the W and S of the ridge and straight rig and furrow is visible on the SE. The castle now lies within a clearing of a Forestry Commission plantation; it comprises a slightly off-square moated enclosure and two ranges of buildings to either side of a yard immediately to the NE.

The enclosure measures 23m square within a moat 11.5m in breadth and up to 2m deep. The moat stills holds water at the SW side and a gap at its S corner may have held a sluice gate used to manage the water level. Up-cast from the moat is heaped along its outer edge and has been formed into a wide level platform along the SE side. Access across the moat was via a drawbridge that was supported by an abutment which survives as a terrace about 3m in length visible in the side of the moat on the NE.

The enclosure was occupied by four ranges of buildings around a central square c 8m across. Each building is defined by a low flat-topped bank c 1.5m in thickness and standing up to 0.35m in height, suggesting a timber-framed superstructure based on stone footings. Those on the NE and SE are more prominent and the external walls on the NW have been lost to erosion. Each range appears to have been sub-divided with a square compartment at each corner and a larger central room. A gully cuts through the outer wall of that on the SE side, suggesting the possibility of a slops-drain from a kitchen or perhaps a garderobe. Another drain visible as a gap in the walls was noted at the W corner.

To the NE of the moated enclosure there are the remains of two parallel ranges set to the NW and SE of an open yard. Given the absence of stonework the NW range may have been timber, although its NE end is obscured by debris from stone-robbing, with piles of small stones. The NW range comprises two separate buildings, 12m apart. That to the SW measures about 16m by 8m overall. Alongside the building there appears to have been a passage, marked by a slightly raised flat area, c 2m wide, leading to the bridge over to the enclosure. This may also mark the back of another building platform between the passage and the SE building range, c 9m across with a broad bank on the NE. The second building of the NW range, 12m to the NE, is marked by a hollow 14m in length, which is partly overlain by the piles of stone debris. A low terrace runs in an arc SE from this hollow for about 15m before returning to meet the corner of the stone range on the SE. A possible entrance is suggested by a flattening of the edge of the terrace in the middle of the NE arc.

The SE range is stone-built and has been all but demolished except on the SE side, where a ruinous wall stands up to about 2m in height. The overall size of the range extends to about 33m in length by 8.5 in breadth overall and comprises two unequal compartments with a turret on the E corner, 7m across, that is offset 2m to the SE. The NE and larger of the two compartments has an undercroft or basement which is partly filled with stone rubble and collapsed masonry. The base of a garderobe chute occupies the corner of this compartment and return of the turret on the E corner, indicating that there was an upper floor. The SW compartment has a gap in the wall that may be the location of a slops drain in the middle of the SE wall. Some of the masonry has collapsed into the edge of the moat.

The small burn that flows past the site on the W cuts through the middle of two large earthen dams, each about 2.5m in height and 10m in breadth, and the one to the N is set 2.6m higher than the other. The wide gaps through each dam presumably mark the location of sluice gates used to manage the water level within each pond, and the NE edge of the lower pond is clearly marked by a steep scarp with a terrace behind. Quarry hollows are visible at the location of each dam, and were presumably the source of the material for their construction. A drystone dyke that runs through the gap in the upper dam is post-medieval in date.

To the S of the castle ridge there is a long narrow trench which measures about 45m from WNW to ESE by 6m in breadth overall and 0.5m deep, interpreted here as a fishpond which can be compared with the example at St. Serf’s Priory in Loch Leven (Canmore id 27872). The lack of any sign of water in this pond may be due to changes in the water-table. There was a boggy flush at its W end which may be where there is a spring that once fed the pond. A further boggy area c25m to the E also has a terraced edge along its SW side, suggesting another manmade pond.

The straight ridge and furrow is very slight and difficult to detect except on the level ground at the NE end of the castle enclosure where the grass is cut short, but Airborne Laser Scan data provided by Forestry Commission Scotland revealed that it extended down to the edge of the narrow fishpond on the S. It measures c 4.5m from furrow to furrow and is aligned from NE to SW. It represents a cultivation episode coeval with improved farm of Smallburn, some 250m to the SW (Canmore id 357114).