Castle Of Findon
Castle (Medieval), Fort (Period Unknown), Motte (Medieval)(Possible)
Site Name Castle Of Findon
Classification Castle (Medieval), Fort (Period Unknown), Motte (Medieval)(Possible)
Alternative Name(s) Findon Castle; Castle Hill, Gardenstown; Castle Point
Canmore ID 19285
Site Number NJ76SE 5
NGR NJ 7943 6424
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/19285
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Gamrie
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Banff And Buchan
- Former County Banffshire
NJ76SE 5 7943 6424
(NJ 7943 6424) Castle of Findon (NR) (Site of)
Fosse (NR)
OS 6" map, Banffshire, 2nd ed., (1904)
The site of the Castle of Findon falls on the top of a prominent knoll overlooking Gamrie Bay with steep natural slopes on all sides and ravines to NE and SW. Traces of scarps and ditches can be seen around the top of the knoll but no structural remains survive, except two blocks of masonry embedded in the ground at the SW end. Many stones have been removed from the site within living memory and vitrified stones have been found, according to the Ordnance Survey Name Book (ONB 1869), and within recent years, though none was found during fieldwork.
Local tradition attributes the castle to the son of Hamlyn of Troup (NJ86NW) but the discovery of vitrified material suggests even earlier occupation.
Revised at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (NKB) 10 February 1965.
Name Book 1869.
No change.
Visited by OS (RL) 25 January 1968.
Identified as motte.
P A Yeoman 1988.
Note (22 April 2015 - 18 May 2016)
The Castle of Findon occupies a prominent hillock on the the E side of the gully named Kirk Den, roughly opposite the site of the old parish church and burial-ground of Gamrie. Essentially a motte, with traces of a ditch cut round the SE and NE flank immediately below the lip of the summit, and further scarping of the slope below, the OS also recorded two blocks of masonry. The OS Name Book, however, also noted vitrified stones found here, either in the robbing of a stone from the castle itself or possibly in the quarry cut into the flank of the hillock on the NW; no examples of these stones survive. If there was indeed an earlier timber-laced fortification here, the rest of the promontory descending on the seaward side of the hillock does not lend itself and its interior cannot have extended much beyond the oval summit, which before it was quarried may have measured a maximum of 43m from NE to SW by no more than 12m transversely.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2967
Field Visit (May 2022)
NJ 79405 64327 Not visited during fieldwork by SCAPE. A photograph was taken of site from west near St John's churchyard.
Information from S. Boyd and J. Hambly - Scottish Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion (SCAPE).
