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Old Largie Castle

Castle (Medieval)(Possible)

Site Name Old Largie Castle

Classification Castle (Medieval)(Possible)

Canmore ID 38890

Site Number NR74NW 6

NGR NR 7085 4832

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/38890

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish Killean And Kilchenzie
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Archaeology Notes

NR74NW 6 7085 4832.

(NR 7083 4832) Old Largie Castle (NR) (Ruin)

OS 6" map, (1924)

Old Largie Castle (Site). When the officers of the Ordnance Survey visited this site about the year 1868 they reported that "only a small portion of the side wall" of the castle survived, and that the remainder of the area was occupied by the farmsteading of High Rhunahaorine. This farmsteading, apparently a structure of late 18th- or early 19th century date, has since become completely ruinous and its fragmentary remains now incorporate no recognisable portions of an early castle.

The MacDonalds of Largie, descendants of the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, have been in possession of estates in Kintyre since about the middle of the 15th century. The site now under discussion was presumably an early seat of the family in this locality, but since at least as early as the end of the 18th century the principal family residence has been situated at Tayinloan. Old Largie Castle is said to have been "merely a fortified house, strong but plain in character, and of small size (Bede 1861).

RCAHMS 1971, visited 1965; Name Book 1869; C Bede 1861.

Within the ruins of the farmstead there are two features remaining probably from the old castle. They are a cellar in the SW end of the farmstead, of which no structural details remain due to choking by debris, and short stretches of broken walling up to 2.2m high on the N and E sides of the farm which would appear to be the remains of the original barmkin.

Visited by OS (J B) 16 December 1977.

Activities

Watching Brief (9 September 2015)

NR 70851 48366 – NR 70835 48340 A watching brief was kept on 9 September 2015 during the excavation of a 33m long earth wire trench from a pole on an overhead power line at Rhunahaorine. The trench was located very near the remains of Old Largie Castle (NR74NW 6) and those of a post-medieval farmstead that overlie it. Nothing of archaeological significance was encountered in the trench.

Archive and report: National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE)

Funder: SSE

John Lewis - Scotia Archaeology

(Source: DES, Volume 16)

References

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