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Archaeology Notes

Event ID 674848

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/674848

NM80SW 2 83908 00848.

(NM 8390 0086) Carnasserie Castle (NR) (In Ruins)

OS 6" map, Argyllshire, 2nd ed., (1900)

Carnasserie Castle, though apparently an early square keep with a hall-house attached to the W was in fact built all at the one time, in the 1560s by John Carswell, first protestant Bishop of the Isles, on the site of an older castle. The 5' - 6' thick walls of the roofless keep, provided with small gun-ports, rise 5 storeys high, with the wing one storey lower. A courtyard extended to the W and S, the walls and outbuildings of which have almost entirely disappeared, only a small portion of the wall next the SW angle of the house, and a gateway, dated 1681, remaining.

N Tranter 1962-70; D MacGibbon and T Ross 1887-92; DoE TS, undated

The remains of Carnasserie Castle are generally as described. Name confirmed.

Visited by OS (RD) 12 October 1971.

NM 8390 0084 Excavations were undertaken in January 1998. The castle is a late 16th-century tower house with contemporary wing, situated above the main road from Oban to Lochgilphead, and was built by John Carsewell, first Protestant Bishop of the Isles.

The excavations were designed to allow drainage work to be carried out in the first-floor chamber at the E end of the castle. Two small trenches were excavated by hand at the N end of this room, in order to characterise the deposits therein, which appeared to be contemporary with the building of the castle. A small trench was excavated outside the castle, against the wall, at the base of a latrine shaft leading from an alcove off the first-floor chamber. The trench contained the construction trench for the castle wall or the cut for a drain.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

D Murray 1998

NM 839 008 Site included in a field survey carried out by GUARD in 2003.

H F James, 2003 (RCAHMS MS 2371, no. 22)

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References