Archaeology Notes

Event ID 688956

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/688956

NO45NE 18 49676 56479

(NO 4968 5648) Castle of Finavon (NR)

OS 6" map, (1959).

For Finavon Castle, dovecot (4909 5703) and Finavon Castle (country house at NO 4952 5648), see NO45NE 17 and NO45NE 32, respectively.

The remains of Finavon Castle, probably erected by the Earl of Crawford soon after 1608. It has been on the L-plan but the W wing has been demolished to foundation level. Three walls of the "keep" still stand five storeys high. On the NE angle are the remains of a corbelled angle tower with double shot-holes. A courtyard is indicated by portions of walling including a fragment with shot-holes running north.

D MacGibbon and T Ross 1887-92.

Generally as described, except that the foundations of the W wing and courtyard walls have been exposed by excavation. The whole site is overgrown and the walls are in poor condition. The walls of the keep on the N and E and the returns of the W wall on the N and of the S wall on the E remain to a height of 15.0m. Elsewhere, the keep and the projecting fragment of wall, with shot-holes, on the N are 2.0m high. The excavations have cleared a small courtyard abutting the S wall of the tower and measuring 11.5m x 4.5m within a wall which now appears mainly as an earthen bank, but appears to be 2.0m broad and 0.2m high. Within the courtyard, a stone-built well has been exposed.

One metre W of the S wall of the courtyard and in a straight line with its outer limit is a fragment of the face of a wall 7.5m long and 0.3m high, whose purpose is uncertain.

Visited by OS (JLD), 20 August 1958.