Archaeology Notes

Event ID 730288

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/730288

NY08SE 34 centred 0818 8256

For general views of centre of Lochmaben, see . For motte (NY 0820 8220) and castle (NY 0883 8115), see NY08SE 7 and NY08SE 8 respectively. For modern town house (NY 0818 8257), see NT08SE 47. For trial excavation in Mounnsey's Wynd (NY08SE 64), see NY08SE 64.

The earliest reference to Lochmaben as a burgh appears in 1296, when it was held by the Bruce lords of Annandale; the forfeiture of Annandale to the crown in 1440 gave it a royal superior.

G S Pryde 1965.

The burgh of Lochmaben is situated in mid-Annandale, at the SW corner of the corner of Dumfries, and at an important strategic position at a fork in the main Annandale road. Five lochs surrounded the town and the name may be derived from the Locus Maponi of the Ravenna Cosmography. The town appears in medieval records as Louchmaban (c. 1170), Lochmaben (1180) and Loumaben (1223).

A T Simpson and S Stevenson 1980.

Small town squeezed between lochs (Castle Loch, Kirk Loch and Mill Loch) to the S, W and N. It was founded before 1296 as a burgh of barony under the feudal superiority of the Bruces, lords of Annandale, whose principal castle (NY08SE 7) stood here.

J Gifford 1996.