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Publication Account
Date 1951
Event ID 1097486
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1097486
THE FORE-WELL.
On the E. of the chapel the head of the “Long Stairs”, once closed by “St.Margaret's Gate”, rises to the nearer end of the Fore-Wall Battery, whose name is possibly a corruption of Fore-Well, for the well itself lies at the farther end. It is 110 ft. deep, but the upper 24 ft., circular in section and steened with ashlar, is an extension. The lower part, hewn through the rock, is about 10 ft. square, tapering to 4 ft. square at the bottom. This is apparently the well that was filled in when the Castle was dismantled in 1313. Choked with debris in the siege of 1573, it was cleaned out and extended in 1574 to suit the new system of defences, while latterly it supplied three storage tanks built within the ruins encased by the Half Moon Battery. When it was cleaned out in 1913 no objects of special interest were found. Immediately N. of the well the Fore-Wall Battery joins the rounded end of the Half-Moon Battery, the wall of which had to be repaired farther E. after 1639, at a point where a broad buttress can still be seen.
RCAHMS 1951
