Archaeology Notes

Event ID 721924

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/721924

NX04SE 1 06702 44683

(NX 0670 4468) Doon Castle (NAT) Broch (NR)

OS 1:10000 map (1978)

A broch situated on a narrow rocky spit cut off from the land by a wall and traversed by a ditch spanned by a built causeway. The broch, comparatively well preserved, has a normal entrance to the seaward and another, possibly secondary, to landward. The interior is about 30' in diameter within a wall about 13' in thickness.

R W Feachem 1963; RCAHMS 1912

As described by Feachem. The name 'Doon Castle' was confirmed.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (RD) 10 February 1972

This broch is situated within an outwork on a rocky promontory on the S side of Ardwell Point. The interior of the broch, which is choked with debris, measures 9m in diameter and wall varies from 3.75m in thickness on the NNE to 4.6m on the E. The rubble of the wall stands up to 1.8m in height on the NNE and, although only occasional outer facing-stones are visible most of the inner face can be identified. There are entrances on both the NNE and the S, and a mural chamber on the E, with a probable second on the W. The NNE entrance is blocked with fallen masonry but enough of the wall face is visible to show that it measures 3.75m in length and is checked 1.8m from the outer end; the outer part of the passage is 1.4m wide and the inner part splays from 1.8m in width at the door checks to 2.2m at the inner wall-face. The S entrance had been emptied of rubble shortly before the date of visit, revealing the wall faces standing up to 1.1m in height in six courses; it measures 4.05m in length and is checked 1.25m from the outer end, the outer part of the passage contracting from 0.9m in width at the outer wall face to 0.8m between the checks; the inner passage expands from 1.2m in width at the checks to 1.4m midway along its length, before contracting to 1.1m at the inner wall-face.

All that is visible of the mural chamber on the E are the sides of the entrance, which splay from 0.8m at the mouth to 1.2m at a point about 1.2m back from the inner wall-face. The mouth of the probable W chamber is only 0.5m wide. The outwork, a wall at least 2.6m thick, encloses an area measuring 14m from E to W by 10m between the broch and the N end of the promontory. No inner fa cing-stones survive, but portions of the outer face are visible on the W, N and E ; the outer face is best preserved below the W side of the broch, where it measures 1.3m high in seven courses and was probably carried upwards by the outer face of the broch. On the E the rubble of the outwork merges with that of the broch, but again the outer face extends along the side of the promontory below the broch wall. The entrance through the outwork was probably on the NNE, opposite a causeway which has been constructed across a natural gully 6m broad and 2.3m deep that cuts off the promontory from the N. The causeway is 1.9m wide and 0.9m high, the masonry of its sides standing 0.6m high in three courses.

RCAHMS 1985, visited (SH) August 1984; Name Book 1848; RCAHMS Survey of Marginal Lands; R W Feachem 1977.