Hallyards

NO 2790 4641. On the low-lying arable land to the south of Hallyards farm are the much-reduced remains of a homestead moat consisting of a flat rectangular area enclosed by a broad shallow ditch c.20m in width and 0.7m in depth. The south side of the moat has been obliterated. No entrance can now be seen; the interior is featureless.

Surveyed at 1/2500

Visited by OS (WDJ) 5 October 1970

An aerial transcription was produced from oblique aerial photographs. Information from Historic Environment Scotland (BM) 31 March 2017.

This moated site is situated on a slight eminence in otherwise low-lying ground 600m NW of the River Isla, and, although it has been severely wasted by ploughing, its form and structure are clearly revealed by cropmarks on air photographs. Rectangular on plan, it measures at least 85m from NNE to SSW by 80m transversely within a ditch 8m broad; the course of what is probably a stone wall is indicated by a light-toned mark lying inside the line of the ditch on three sides. The teinds of Hallyards are on record in 1506, and in 1727 the house of Hallyards is described as protected from the floodwaters of the Isla 'by ditches encompassing it'.

Information from RCAHMS (JRS) 22 December 1992.

Dunkeld Rentale 1915.

Russell Coleman managed an Historic Scotland funded project to record medieval moated sites in Scotland. Gazetteers were produced for each regional council area between 1996 and 2002 with an uncompleted overall review in 2002-03. The results of the first year of the project were published in Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal, Volume 3 (1997).