Finavon Doocot

Photographs of Finavon Castle and estate buildings 1967.

The National Trust for Scotland commissioned Alder Archaeology Ltd to carry out a historic building recording on Finavon Doocot, the largest doocot in Scotland, which lies just off the A90 near Forfar. The purpose of the investigation was to create a record of the Doocot ahead of a proposed repair programme. The work (site code FF14) was carried out on the 6th and 7th of November 2012 in good weather conditions. External and internal elevations of the large double-lectern doocot were surveyed electronically and an analytical record of the structure was made. The work revealed that the 1978-9 partial restoration of the doocot had replaced about a quarter of the building's original fabric including wall tops and the S wall. This reconstruction had effectively removed any phasing which may have been present in the original building, though some of the stone re-used in the restoration hints that there were some historic alterations. In particular, it seems that the finials and gablets may have been added in the late 17th or 18th century, and the crow steps possibly renewed at this time. The date of the original building is uncertain as the plaque in the wall is blank, but the doocote was probably constructed around the time of Finavon Castle which is likely to have been built by the Earl of Crawford some time after 1608. The original building appears to have had yetts in the doorways, an important security measure to protect a doocot of this size.

Information from Oasis (alderarc1-139783) 20 December 2012

Finavon Doocot is the largest of its type in Scotland; it contains 2420 nesting boxes and was built to serve the needs of Finavon Castle.

The building is a typical double-lectern type doocot with the central wall projecting through the roof. Built into a wooded bank, the structure is rectangular in plan, orientated SSE-NNW with the front elevation facing the SSE. The building is divided into two rooms of equal size, each accessed via small doorways in the front elevation.

In between the doors, a stone plaque has been incorporated high up in the wall. Three horizontal string courses run along the rear wall, the middle one continuing around the E and W elevations where it steps down to join a single course running along the front elevation just below the roof line. The central, E and W walls have crow steps with decorated skewputts, and there are further crow stepped gablets at the NW and NE corners and in the centre of the rear wall. Resting on top of these features are ball finials and in between them along the rear wall are two pyramidal finials. The rear wall is higher than the roof, creating a high parapet.

Unaltered fabric survives in the E, W and internal walls below the wall head and away from the S wall, as well in the rear wall below the upper string course.

The make-up of the N wall is exposed in the E room where the internal face has collapsed. The random rubble of the external face has been bonded into a core composed of a mixture of sand and clay with small angular fragments of rubble. The mortar which can be seen in this face is probably the white lime pointing applied to the outer wall face. Inner faces of the wall have been built carefully incorporating a series of next boxes constructed from sandstone slabs. The horizontal and vertical members of the nest boxes are embedded slightly into the wall and project some 32cm into the room. Well-selected small squared blocks of sandstone have been used to form the back faces of the nest boxes. The nest boxes themselves have been built in the linear egg-crate arrangement typical of lectern doocots.

Horizontal shelves for the nest boxes comprise hewn and chiselled sandstone slabs of a variety of widths (57-103cm) and between 7cm and 4cm in thickness, with divisions frequently, but not always, meeting below upright divisions. Occasionally, grooves have been pecked into the faces of these stones to allow the uprights to fit. The uprights, which have both chiselled and hewn faces, are aligned above one another and are of similar thicknesses to the horizontal members. Though there is some degree of variation throughout the dovecot, the most frequent internal dimensions for the nest boxes is 21cm tall, 24.5cm wide and 32cm deep. Towards the base of the structure, the nest boxes rest on a ledge where the wall reaches full thickness. The face of the wall here incorporates medium sized angular blocks of sandstone showing no tooling, built to approximate level beds.

The floor of the rooms are covered in rectangular flagstones of varying sizes with those in the W room cemented during the 1970s restoration. The flags are likely to be the original floor surface.

When the restoration began in 1978, only the E roof of the building survived, though this was deemed to be in poor condition and was subsequently taken down. The W wall of the structure had partly collapsed and the S wall, the principal elevation, had separated from its adjoining walls. The restoration process involved taking down the S wall entirely and reconstructing it in brickwork, red brick on the outside and grey brick inside.

As well as re-building the S wall, the largest structural change to the original building was the partial down taking of the upper part of the rear wall. Much of this repair was carried out in red brick, and the upper string course was also probably replaced during this work. What remained of the W and E gables was altered and also stabilised in red brick, and the central finial completely reconstructed. The stone ledge of double thickness on the front face of the rear wall also seems to have been rebuilt as it is very uniform.

New roofs were constructed in pine, with the rafters spanning three purlins. This involved the remodelling of the tops of the W, internal and E walls with brick and stonework to incorporate the new roof purlins. New flight holes were incorporated into the centre of the roofs, but whether their design is true to the original holes is not clear. Stone slates were used to cover the roofs which probably involved partial re-use of slates that had collapsed into the structure.

During the restoration, pieces of stonework were retained and re-used. Some were no doubt found in situ, whilst others were probably discovered on the ground having fallen off the structure. The sandstone blocks for the crow steps are a little eroded and are probably reasonably old, though given their regular nature they may be early replacements rather than belonging to the original structure. Some of the blocks used in the gables, particularly those below the central finial have dressed edges and may be 1970s replacements. The central ball finial is too circular and uniform to be original and was probably also a 1970s replacement. The other ball finials are oval as they have become distorted through weathering, so may well be several hundred years old.

When the S wall was being re-built during the restoration, grey bricks were used for the internal face so that the re-build was less obvious. The brickwork was constructed so that the horizontal and upright slabs for the nest boxes recovered from the old S wall were re-used and the nest boxes re-created.

The two doorways appear to have been reconstructed during the restoration and this has meant that though some of the door stones are original, the positions of them are possibly not as they were prior to 1978. The W door is hinged on its W side and the E door to its E. Cut into the rybats and sills of both doorways are recesses on the exterior and interior faces. Currently there are only doors in the outer wall recesses, but the inner recess suggests that originally there were two doors, or a single door and a yett for each room. Some of the rybats in the exterior face of the W doorway are either not part of the original doorway or are original stones which have been re-cut. However, the two stones currently housing hinges for the door are part of the original doorway, as are the lowest rybats opposite.

Information from NTS

A lectern dovecote, the property of NTS, is the largest doocot in Scotland, having 2400 nesting boxes. Prominent from the A90, it is not currently accessible, pending long-term repairs that are on hold.

M Watson, 2013