Archaeology Notes

Event ID 726238

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/726238

NX16SW 031 c. 103 608.

A small, dug-out canoe was found about 1870 in White Loch, close to the shore and near the channel which cuts off Inch Crindil from the mainland.

C E Dalrymple 1873; RCAHMS 1912

This canoe is thought to be in Dumfries Museum.

Visited by OS 29 February 1968.

A logboat was discovered about 1870 in White Loch, which has also been known as Loch of Inch and is situated in drumlin country at an altitude of about 20m OD. Neither the boat nor the circumstances of its discovery were recorded in detail, but it was found near the channel between the shore and the island which was the site of the 'Manor Place of Inch', a medieval house of the Earls of Cassillis.

In store at Dumfries Museum there are the unlabelled remains of a logboat which was identified by Mrs Grant as Lochmaben, Castle Loch 1 (NY08SE 50) but is more probably the White Loch discovery. Museum records note the transfer from the Stair Collection of a logboat from 'Lochinch Castle' which bears the accession number DUMFM 1964.139, and of which no other remains are evident in the collection. The underside of the boat was inaccessible at the date of visit.

The remains comprise one end and the midships section of a logboat worked from knotted timber. It has been reduced to a flat plank from which project the end and part of one side. The other end has broken away and been lost, so that the remains now measure only 3.94m in length. Iron bands have been fitted to retain the severely-split remains in position.

The surviving end (which was more probably the bow) is of rounded point form, survives to a height of up to 140mm and is rounded both externally and internally in longitudinal section. The midships section is parallel-sided and measures about 0.5m in beam. The sides were probably slightly flared and one of them survives in part to a height of 200mm. The bottom measures about 30mm in thickness along the centreline, and between 10mm and 20mm near the sides.

On the evidence of the surviving remains, the slenderness coefficient was in excess of 7.9. The McGrail morphology code is 131:1x3:xxx or (less probably) xxx:1x3:131 and the form could not be ascertained from the surviving evidence.

C E Dalrymple 1873; R J C Mowat 1996, visited December 1987.