Seil, Ardfad Castle

NM 769 194 Ardfad Castle, Seil.

The scanty remains of this small castle (Fig. 165, Pl. 39D) occupy the summit of an elongated rocky outcrop close to the N shore of the island of Seil. The site is bounded by sheer rock-faces rising to a height of about 7 m on all sides except the SW, where a natural gully has been widened to form a smoothly sloping approach. The summit area, which measures 38 m from NE to SW by 14 m transversely, has been enclosed by a curtain-wall of lime-mortared rubble masonry, 0·9 m in thickness, conforming to the irregular outline of the perimeter. This wall is best preserved on the NE and E flanks, where a stretch of revetment remains in situ on the cliff-face; elsewhere the wall is now represented only by a low scarp, and no remains are visible in the SW section.

The site has been divided into two unequal portions by a transverse rectangular building measuring 14.0 m from NW to SE by 6·7 m in width over walls 0·9 m in thickness. This structure is now reduced to foundation level, except for a fragment of its NW gable which survives to a height of 1·2 m and incorporates a recess, perhaps a fireplace or a window-embrasure. At the W angle there are the foundations of a round tower 2·9 m in diameter, which perhaps contained a stair. Although an entrance-passage must have formerly existed, as at Gylen (No. 291), to provide access to the inner enclosure, its position cannot be identified. In the SE portion of the NE wall, which serves as the foundation of a dry-stone wall of recent construction, there is a splayed return which possibly formed one side of a doorway. The wall returned NE at the SE end to form a small chamber, probably a latrine, at the junction with the curtain-wall. A large roughly-shaped corbel projects from the outer face of the NW gable-wall of the building (A on Fig.165), near its junction with the round tower, and another similar corbel (B) projects from the base of the curtain wall in the NE section. The purpose of these features is uncertain. A brief description of the castle, published in 1895 (Macadam, 24), refers to the existence of 'the usual arrow slits', but none are now visible.

Ardfad has no recorded history, but the plan of the building is consistent with a date in the late 16th or early 17th century. At this period the N part of Seil was held by the MacDougalls of Ardincaple, a branch of the MacDougalls of Rarey, as tenants of the Campbells of Glenlyon who had been granted the four merklands of Ardincaple in 1510. The construction of the castle maybe ascribed to John MacDougall, who died shortly before 1615, or to his son of the same name*, and it was probably the principal residence of the family during the 17th century.

RCAHMS 1975, visited June 1971.

*Origines Parochiales, ii, part i, 103; Burke's Landed Gentry (13th ed., 1921), 1161-2; Campbell, Argyll Sasines, i, no. 185.

RCAHMS surveyed this site with plane-table and alidade on 8 June 1971. The resultant plan was redrawn in ink and published at a reduced scale as Fig. 165 in 1975.