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RCAHMS Inventory: Peeblesshire
Date 1951 - 1964
Event ID 1086873
Category Project
Type Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1086873
'Following our usual practice we have prepared a detailed, illustrated Inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Peeblesshire, which under the advice of the Lords Commissioners of Your Majesty's Treasury will be issued as a non-Parliamentary publication.
Peeblesshire is particularly rich in prehistoric remains of the 2nd and 1st millennia B.C., and the survey has disclosed several previously unrecognised categories of habitation sites, cemeteries and barrows, as well as large numbers of unrecorded examples of other monuments. Of exceptional interest are the many palisaded works and timber houses whose presence in the hill pastures can still be detected by slight surface indications; while important additions have been made to two types of monuments which are poorly represented in Scotland, namely "Celtic" fields and pit alignments. Another discovery made in the course of our survey is that of the Roman fort at Easter Happrew, and we have been able to undertake some productive excavation both on that site and on the neighbouring Roman fort at Lyne.
In the architectural field, the outstanding monuments are Neidpath Castle and Traquair House, of which the former typifies the great baronial residence of the later Middle Ages while the latter illustrates the domestic standards of the nobility during the 17th and 18th centuries. A third major monument, Drochil Castle, is of particular interest on account of its unique plan, but the structural condition of the building gives considerable cause for concern. Tower-houses of the smaller Border lairds are particularly numerous in Peeblesshire and the present study has brought to light several hitherto unrecognised examples of this class of structure. A considerable number of country houses of the 18th and early 19th centuries have likewise been recorded for the first time, the value of such records being increased in some cases by the subsequent demolition of the building concerned. The ecclesiastical architecture of the county is generally undistinguished, but interesting and comparatively well-preserved parish churches of the medieval and post-Reformation periods occur at Stobo and Lyne respectively.'
RCAHMS 1967, xvii - xviii
