External Reference

Date 2011

Event ID 962037

Category Documentary Reference

Type External Reference

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/962037

Mr Wm Grant was brought up on this farm and recalls playing on the mound, including digging a pit to shoot duck where he uncovered 2 quernstones. He also remembers when the moat water continuously encircled the site. It was fed at the south side by an artificial open stream coming from a lochan lying south of the B970, and was drained by a sluice running the water down into boggy ground and eventually into the Spey. The feeding lochan is now drained and an underground pipe carries its water across fields to the west.

The top of the mound is largely a flat grassy surface, but evidence of stone footings underneath are just visible. On the east side there are the footings and depth of a rectilinear stone structure used as a corn-kiln; the midway flue passageway is just visible as is the neat bowl-shaped stonework of the kiln itself. To the south a section of the mound appears to be scooped away, and Wm. Grant stated that a horse-mill/horse-gang was located there, and that until being unsafe in recent times there also remained the last of a stone building with evidence of connecting drive metal shaft from the horse-gang (the building and horse-gang are depicted on the first edition OS map).

The site has a splendid field of vision, across, up and down the Spey valley several miles in each direction.

The motte is depicted on an old estate map from the 1770s, now in the National Archives of Scotland (GB234, RHP3964/1/33, Plan of Davoch of Gertinmore). The inscription on the map was previously thought to be Petriny (leading to erroneous placename for this site), but Morag Fyfe of the National Archives of Scotland interpreted it as 'Barns', showing that at this time the site had already been incorporated into the farm. The first edition OS map also shows buildings on the site, as well as the horse-gang.

To the south of the mound until the early 20th century there was a prosperous walled kitchen-garden, with a well, and a huge timber-constructed barn, since demolished.

Information from John Davison, ARCH Community Timeline Course, 2011