Archaeology Notes

Event ID 828933

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/828933

NJ16NE 4 1892 6725

For Old Duffus steading (NJ 1870 6746), see NJ16NE 53.00.

(NJ 18926725) Duffus Castle (NR) (Ruins)

OS 6" map, Morayshire, 2nd ed., (1906).

Duffus Castle.

W D Simpson 1951.

Survey of earthworks checked.

Visited by OS (W D J) 30 November 1962.

Classified as Site of Regional Significance; public monument with regular hours and entry fee.

Castle: motte and bailey. Originally a 12th century timber castle built on mound. Keep and bailey built c.1350; square keep with N wall fallen, 3 storeys, roofless, slit windows, passages in thickness of walls, bailey roughly oval, curtain wall. 15th century domestic range on N side with oven of clay and stone on E. Fosse encloses c. 8 acres. Causeway. [Air photographic imagery and bibliographic references listed].

NMRS, MS/712/35.

NJ 189 672 A watching brief was undertaken in October 2001 during the excavation of two small test pits at Duffus Castle (NJ16NE 4). The castle is a stone-built 14th-century keep, sitting on top of a mound which is thought to represent the remains of a 12th-century timber and earth motte and bailey castle. The 14th-century castle is in a poor state of repair, with most of the N wall, and the N end of the W wall, collapsed and falling down the side of the 12th-century motte. A recently restored landslide on the W side of the mound indicates the still unstable nature of the site.

Although the areas excavated were very small, they did demonstrate the below-ground extent of at least the W wall, as well as indicating that an electricity cable running along the inside face of the W wall is likely to have disturbed any archaeological deposits in this area. The highly plastic nature of the clay encountered (quite possibly redeposited topsoil from the immediate area) is likely to have contributed to the instability of the site.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsor: HS

G Ewart and D Stewart 2002

NJ 189 672 Archaeological excavation, as well as monitoring of associated machine activity, was considered necessary during the initial stages of the bridge replacement over the outer moat in September 2002. This included the removal of four concrete emplacements as well as the hand-excavation of two deep trenches into both moat sides, dug initially to water level. The final part of the excavations was the deepening of the two side trenches by machine to create one large trench right across the moat, cut to well below the level of the water.

The concrete emplacements and borehole clearly come from the most recent bridge. This apparently replaced a footbridge at the same point, represented by the build-up of rubble and stone spreads on both N and S banks. Thick debris on the S side contained shattered clay drainpipe amongst the clay and boulders and is certainly redeposited material from the last 200 years. Boulders on the N bank top may be filling a shallow field drain exiting into the moat from the area of the present car park.

It was noted that a level taken on the field surface 50m to the N of the moat is the same height as the top of a brown clay horizon in both trenches and represents the general land surface prior to work on the castle. All clay and peat below the top of the brown clay surface is natural.

Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsor: HS

G Ewart 2002