Archaeology Notes

Event ID 728014

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/728014

NX49SE 1 4882 9475 and 4841 9501

(NX 4882 9475) Loch Doon Castle (NR) (Remains of)

(NX 4847 9499) Loch Doon Castle (NR) (Re-erected Remains)

OS 6" map (1957)

For 'Viking axe' and logboats found nearby, see NX49SE 10 and NX49SE 11 respectively.

Loch Doon Castle was supposedly destroyed by fire during the reign of James V. Information from the Ayrshire Families (Paterson), states that the 'iron portcullis is lying at the bottom of the lake'. In note 3 of Robert Burness's Common Place Book (R Burness 1873), "till a recent period, a large portion of this remote insular fortress was entire, and it contained a magnificent staircase of seventy steps. Its dilapidation is chiefly attributable to the bad taste of a late proprietor who used its stones for the purpose of building a shooting-lodge - a lodge, after all, found too cold to be inhabited. Some years ago, opposite to the grand entrance of Loch Doon Castle, there was found, at the bottom of the loch, seven ancient boats or canoes, hewn out of solid oak, and twenty-four feet long by four broad, in one of which were a battle-axe and war club, both apparently of great antiquity'.

A McCormick 1947

Loch Doon or Balliol Castle stood on Castle Island until its partial removal to the shore of the loch c. 1935 when the level of the loch was raised.

It had consisted of a simple wall of enceinte, of eleven unequal sides built in the 13th century of excellent coursed ashlar with the entrance in the north. This had been badly damaged and restored with inferior rubble-work possibly in the first half of the 16th century when a keep was added to the inside of the west wall. The re-erected remains do not include this later work.

Six dug-out canoes were found near the castle gate in 1823- 1831, one of which contained a Viking battle-axe (Type Rygh 560) now in Kirkcudbright Museum, donated by Major I A Calchart Drumganze. Two of the canoes are in the Hunterian Museum (Accession nos A30 and 31) and three were preserved in a pond near Berbeth (NS 467 083) in 1837. They may have been used in the construction of the castle (information from A S Robertson 13 December 1955).

Visited by OS (JD) 25 November 1955

New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845; D MacGibbon and T Ross 1889; S Grieg 1940; S Cruden 1960; J Dunbar 1966.

NX 4841 9501. The reconstructed remains of Loch Doon Castle are as described by the previous authorities, but the island at NX 4882 9475 is at present completely submerged and none of its remains visible.

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (BS) 5 February 1976

Abnormally low level of the loch revealed remains of the castle on an island.

Visited by OS (JLD) 2 August 1976

Re-erected castle, and original site, photographed by the RCAHMS in 1977.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

Original site and remains of castle scheduled.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 3 November 1999.