Tillyorn

NJ70SE 1 7543 0248

Location previously entered as NJ c. 753 024.

A large Pictish earthwork, in the form of a hollowed-out horse-shoe, is situated on the farm of Tilliorn, in the land of Cullerley, and is known as 'Fusee'. It is uncertain whether it had been a fort, or a tank or cistern for holding water.

(An anonymous manuscript note in the margin of the NSA (1845) states that the earthwork could not be located).

The Ordnance Survey Name Book (ONB, 1866) records that neither this earthwork nor the name 'Fusee' survived until 1866.

New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845; Name Book 1866.

The remains of this earthwork have almost certainly been revealed by cropmarks at NJ6543 0248 in the field immediately E of Tillyorn farmsteading (NJ70SE 68). Roughly circular on plan, it measures about 60m in diameter within a ditch up to 10m in breadth. The cropmarks give the impression that the earthwork is still visible on the ground, with traces of an external bank around the E half of the circuit and an entrance causeway beneath the field-dyke on the SW.

Information from RCAHMS (SPH), 11 December 2001.

What are probably the remains of a ploughed-down motte are still visible in the field immediately to the E of Tillyorn farmsteading. The dome-shaped central mound measures 68m from ESE to WNW by 56m transversely and still stands at least 2m in height above the surrounding ground. The ditch measures 9m across and is flanked by the broad swelling of an external bank measuring up to 12.5m in thickness; the bank survives up to 1.5m in height on the SW, where the modern field-dyke rides over it. The entrance is probably on the W.

Visited by RCAHMS (ARG, SPH), 13 February 2002.

Scheduled as 'Tillyorn, moated homestead 130m E of... the remains of either a motte or [a] moated homstead [surviving] as an earthwork mound encircled by a broad ditch and external ditch... in a field currently used for light grazing...'

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 4 March 2008.