Blackness Castle Bay

NT08SE 207 056 800 and 056 801

Possibly extends onto map sheet NT07NE.

Not to be confused with landing-place and jetty at Blackness Castle (NT 056 803), for which see NT08SE 6.02.

(Location cited as NT 056 800 - 056 801). Blackness Castle Bay, West Lothian. The muddy bay S of Blackness Castle (NT08SE 6.00) may be seen at low tide to contain a long rickle of debris, and this proves, on examination, to be the ruin of a wall, presumably once a breakwater protecting the N side of the bay. The footings of both faces of the work survive over a stretch about 110ft [33.5m] long, and give it a breadth of about 10ft [3m] at foundation level; the footings are roughly broken blocks of whinstone, unsuitable for coursed construction, combined with a few boulders, and the core is of similar material broken smaller. The N end evidently rested on rocks forming part of the N horn of the bay, at a point 240ft [73.2m] E of the custodian's house inside the Castle enclosure (NT 0563 8019) and although, as is usual, in such cases, the work has been very heavily damaged in the zone near high-water mark, the rock has clearly been cut into where the structure abutted it. From this point, it runs S for 320ft [97.6m], and then swings SSW for a further 340ft [103.7m] before fading out in the mud. The space enclosed between the breakwater and the beach thus approximates to a longish triangle, with a greatest width of about 300ft [91.5m].

These remains are unlikely to represent the harbour authorised by charter in 1465 [for which see NT08SE 33.00].

A Graham 1971.