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Kintore, Castle Hill

Motte (Medieval), Cinerary Urn(S)

Site Name Kintore, Castle Hill

Classification Motte (Medieval), Cinerary Urn(S)

Alternative Name(s) Castlehill

Canmore ID 18589

Site Number NJ71NE 32

NGR NJ 7939 1634

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/18589

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Aberdeenshire
  • Parish Kintore
  • Former Region Grampian
  • Former District Gordon
  • Former County Aberdeenshire

Archaeology Notes

NJ71NE 32.00 7939 1634.

(NJ 7939 1634) Castle Hill (NR) (Site of)

OS 6" map, (1938)

For Pictish symbol stones, see NJ71NE 32.01 and NJ71NE 32.02 respectively.

Not to be confused with Pictish symbol stones from Kintore, Churchyard (NJ 7930 1628), for which see NJ71NE 33.

For stone circles at Broomend of Crichie (NJ 7792 1967), Fullerton (NJ 7839 1797), Cairnhall (NJ 7850 1759) and Hill of Tuack (NJ 7957 1544), see NJ71NE 6, NJ71NE 14, NJ71NE 17, NJ71NE 27 respectively.

Fragments of urns, bones and lead, found in and near the Castle Hill, were presented to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) by Mr A Watt on April, 14th 1856. (No accession nos. were found)

Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1859.

Castle Hill was a conical mound about 30 feet in height and varying from 150 feet wide at the base of the east end to under 30 feet wide at the other. Evidence gained during recent destruction of the mound suggests that a circle of stones, connected by a wall, had formerly existed on the hill, and that they had been overthrown and covered over with earth to the depth of about 10 feet, so as to form the modern Castle Hill.

Two of the stones, inscribed, are in the possession of the writer. On the south and east sides of the hill and for several hundred yards to the eastward, small conical pits 3 to 4 feet long by 2 to 3 feet wide by 1 to 2 1/2 feet deep, containing burnt bones, charcoal etc have been found. One pit, covered by a stone contained a large urn in which was 'a damp substance like meal.' Some of the pits also contained fragments of iron 'and some round pieces of solid tin, about the thickness of small gas pipes. These were found firmly embedded round one of the pits in a vertical position, about eight feet below the surface.'

A Watt 1864.

The two symbol stones are held in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) under accession numbers IB 22-3.

J R Allen and J Anderson 1903; NMAS 1892.

The two Class I symbol stones recovered from the Castle Hill were associated with the remains of a recumbent-stone type of stone circle.

A Norman motte, visited by Edward 1 in 1296 was raised upon the site of the circle.

W D Simpson 1943; 1949.

Activities

Field Visit (16 March 1964)

There are no surface indications of an antiquity in the area.

Visited by OS (NKB) 16 March 1964.

Field Visit (1 October 2002)

Nothing remains of the Castle Hill or the structures that are said to have been found beneath it. Its site lies in the corner of a cultivated field.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS), 1 October 2002.

Publication Account (2011)

In about 1854, when the Castle Hill in Kintore was removed to make way for the Great North of Scotland Railway, what has been interpreted as a prehistoric stone monument was discovered beneath it. The Castle Hill was a royal castle and the caput of the thanage of Kintore in the 12th century. The motte, a substantial mound according to Alexander Watt, the local schoolmaster at the time, measured about 45m in diameter at the base, 9m in height and a little over 20m across its flat top (1865, 141). Many Scottish mottes are simply tailored from natural features, but in this case the upper 3m of the mound seems to have been artificial, and Watt, who had witnessed its destruction, described a substantial structure on the surface below: ‘This lower surface was covered with a layer of burnt earth of considerable depth, and along the eastern margin of the hill… and for some distance back from it, were deposited, in an irregular manner, a quantity of stones, and among them eleven large blocks…, a large block, was lying on the west end of it, about seven feet [2.1m] long, and about two feet [0.6m] broad, and about eighteen inches [0.45m] thick’ (ibid). Two of these blocks were inscribed with Pictish symbols and are slabs 1.5m and 1.05m in length respectively (Fraser 2008, 28, no. 30). In summary Watt concluded: ‘From the appearance of the stones it seems probable that a circle of stones, connected by a wall, had formerly existed on the hill’ (1865, 141). Watt, who rescued the Pictish symbol stones, is evidently the source for a similar account that was published slightly earlier in the first volume of John Stuart’s study of sculptured stones, where the description is elaborated slightly to run ‘that a circle of large stones, connected by a low wall of smaller ones (as is still the case with one class of the “Druidical” Circles) had formerly stood on the summit of the hill’ (1856, 33–4). It was Douglas Simpson, however, who forcefully asserted that this was the remains of a recumbent stone circle (1943, 97), employing an argument that is almost as obscure as it is spurious; lying unstated behind his train of thought was possibly Watt’s description of a large block lying on the west, though from its size it is more likely to have been an orthostat than a recumbent. In truth, it is impossible to be certain that these stones were any more than the substructure of the motte; if a prehistoric monument, however, the description cannot be stretched beyond a cairn with a ring of orthostats in its kerb.

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