Archaeology Notes

Event ID 714405

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/714405

NT33NW 1 3042 3968

(NT 3042 3968) Castle (NR) (remains of)

OS 6" map (1964)

Nether Horsburgh Castle, a little oblong 16th. century tower-house is set in a secluded valley, on low ground within 50' of the Hope Burn. The E end of the tower, facing the stream, has been demolished, but the line of the E wall was established in a trial trench excavated by the Commission's officers at the date of visit. The three other walls still stand to a height of about 40', but they are very ruinous, the dressings having all been torn away from the whinstone rubble-masonry, which at best was not of good quality. The tower appears to have measured 32'2" by 26'3" over walls 4'2" thick, and rose to a height of at least four storeys.

The entrance doorway, situated at ground-floor level towards the E end of the N wall, led into a barrel- vaulted apartment lit by slit-windows, to W and S. There is some evidence to suggest that access to the first floor was obtained by means of a straight stair ascending in the thickness of the E gable-wall.

A contemporary range of two-storeyed buildings evidently extended eastwards for a distance of about 45ft. from the east wall of the tower: it has now completely disappeared but the broken tusking of its S wall can be seen at the SE angle of the tower. From the E end of this range, and at right angles to it, a second range of buildings appears to have extended northwards for a distance of about 72ft. Of this range, only a fragment of the N gable-wall now survives, being incorporated in a dyke which at this point forms the northern boundary of the field in which the tower stands. The surviving fragment of wall has a thickness of 3ft. and rises to a maximum height of 8ft; it shows evidence for existence of a small window and of an aumbry.

No doubt further ranges of buildings, or or enclosing walls, once returned northwards and then westwards to form a courtyard on the N side of the tower.

RCAHMS 1967, visited 1961.

This tower is as described.

Visited by OS (EGC) 20 June 1961 and (SFS) 6 June 1974.