Archaeology Notes

Event ID 695543

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/695543

NR73SE 2 78906 31545

(NR 7890 3154) Castle (NR)

OS 6" map, Argyllshire, 2nd ed., (1924)

For (successor and present) Saddell House (NR 79123 31801), see NR73SE 9.

The remains of Saddell Castle, comprising a well-preserved tower-house, built between 1508 and 1512, standing within an extensive complex of later out-buildings which incorporate portions of an original barmkin-wall. The tower-house is four storeys and a garret high, with a crenallated parapet with open angle turrets, with a fifth 'round' projecting midway along the west side. The parapet is interupted by a cap-house on the west side and encloses a crow-stepped, gabled roof. The masonry is harled random rubble with sandstone dressings. The entrance is at ground level in the west wall, and the lintel bears the date 1508. The existing outbuildings are of mainly late 18th to 19th century date, their erection having probably coincided with the removal of the greater part of the original barmkin and any early buildings it may have contained. The NW range incorporates many stones robbed from Saddell Abbey (NR73SE 1) about 1770.

The surviving fragment of barmkin wall is of boulder-rubble masonry with pink sandstone dressings and mesures about 1.4m in thickness and 3.7m in height. It may originally have been somewhat higher. The south face shows traces of a blocked postern-doorway. The original extent of the barmkin is not known, but the enclosure wall is likely to have run SE from the SE angle of the tower, thence returning progressively west, north, east and again south to join the NE angle at a point where tusking protrudes from the tower wall. The property, which first belonged to the Bishop of Argyll but passed to the MacDonalds and finally the Cambells, is now derelict.

RCAHMS 1971, visited 1964.

Saddell Castle is generally as described and planned by RCAHMS (1971). Currently it is being restored by the Landmark Trust. The small building abutting the SE corner of the stable on the RCAHMS plan has been removed.

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (JB) 25 February 1978.

NR 7890 3154 Site identified as part of a coastal zone assessment survey.

M Cressey, S Badger, 2005.

Castle [NAT]

OS (GIS) MasterMap, June 2010.