Archaeology Notes

Event ID 728099

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/728099

NX78NW 3 7284 8705

(NX 7284 8705) Lochrinnie Mote (NR).

OS 6" map (1957)

Lochrinnie Mote: A natural hillock in the angle formed by the confluence of the Minnigryle and Blackmark Burns has been adapted to form a motte and bailey. Lying ENE-WSW, it has been divided into two unequal parts by a ditch 18 ft wide with a 4ft wide causeway connecting the two. The motte, in the WSW, forms a parallelogram, summit area 110 x 46ft and is 22ft high. The lower division is 86ft long, 46 ft broad at the dividing ditch, narrowing to a point in the E; its average elevation is 16ft. The dividing ditch curves round the WSW end of the motte and the upcast has been thrown up on its outer face for some 30ft. There is a vague indication of a ditch around the base of the higher portion of the hillock, also along the N side and at the extreme ENE end.

RCAHMS 1914, visited 1911; R W Feachem 1956; F R Coles 1892

Lochrinnie Mote, name verified. The description and dimensions of this motte and bailey are generally as stated. The grass-covered, level topped and featureless bailey "platform" is 2.0m below the top of the motte; the latter has a rather more undulating and dished interior without trace of structure or walling. The vegetation mark of an approximately 4.0m wide ditch extends around the entire S and W sides of the motte and around the N side of the bailey. Part of the bailey slope at the E end has slipped to form a 1.0m high 'platform' overlying the ditch.

Surveyed at 1: 10 000.

Visited by OS (JRL) 18 August 1977