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Field Visit
Date March 1982
Event ID 1138649
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1138649
Dunnottar Castle NO 881 838 NO88SE 11
Dunnottar Castle occupies a coastal promontory of about 1.4ha protected on all sides by precipitous cliffs and approachable only from the W. The promontory is probably the site of a fort besieged in 681 and 694 and destroyed by the Vikings between 889 and 900. Although there was possibly a castle here in the 12th century the visible remains are all likely to be of later date and include an L-plan tower-house, erected at the end of the 14th century, extensive domestic buildings of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and a chapel and burial-ground. A church or chapel may have been established here in the Early Christian period, but the existing building appears to be largely of 16th-century date, incorporating, however, two 13th-century windows in its S wall. It was dedicated in 1276 and served as the parish church of Dunnottar until it was burnt in 1297 and a new parish church subsequently built 2.3km to the NW (NO 862 852).
RCAHMS 1982, visited March 1982
(MacGibbon and Ross 1887-92, i, 562-73; Scott 1915-61, v, 459; Barron 1925; Simpson 1941; Simpson 1968; Alcock 1981, 171-2)
