Archaeology Notes

Event ID 727754

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/727754

NY09NE 8 Centred on NY 08451 96781

(Centred: NY 084968) Lochwood Castle (NR)

(Remains of) The Mount (NAT).

OS 6" map, (1957)

For architectural fragments from this tower-house removed to Raehills (NY 0635 9432), see NY09SE 31. For bell said to have been removed from Lochwood Tower to Johnstone parish church (NY 1002 9135), see NY19SW 77.

Lochwood Tower, principal seat of the Johnstone clan of Annandale, built apparently in the 15th c, and described in 1547 as a 'fair large tower ... with ... hall, kitchen and stables, all within the barmkin ...' (RCAHMS 1920). Abutting on the N side is a hillock 'apparently in part artificial' (D Christison 1891) named 'The Mount', a scheduled, circular double-terraced motte with ramparts, Norman predecessor of the stone tower. South of the tower, in the centre of a level meadow which was probably the garden, is an artificially-looking, ditched earthen mound, some 9ft high and 36 to 40ft across the base (cf Logan in Galloway). RCAHMS 1920.

Lochwood Tower, its associated outbuildings, and The Mount - a motte, are generally as described and planned. There is no mound to the south only on the west which does not seem to be antiquity.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (R D) 26 March 1972

No change to previous field report.

Visited by OS (M J F) 29 August 1978.

Quite extensive remains of a stronghold commanding the upper parts of Annandale, occupied by the Johnstones of that Ilk (later Earls of Annandale) from the late 12th to the early 18th century.

J Gifford 1996.