Farland Head
Natural Feature (Period Unknown), Wall (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Farland Head
Classification Natural Feature (Period Unknown), Wall (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Portencross Castle; Firth Of Clyde; Outer Clyde Estuary
Canmore ID 40591
Site Number NS14NE 13
NGR NS 1791 4851
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/40591
- Council North Ayrshire
- Parish West Kilbride
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Cunninghame
- Former County Ayrshire
NS14NE 13 179 485
0.5km SE of Portencross Castle, (NS14NE 2) an excavated shallow pond in raised-beach sands retains brackish water, and overlies vertically dipping rock strata of Upper Old Red Sandstone age. Pond open to HWM on E at a crosswall of large boulders, many of which are petrographically similar to the trachyte sill of Goldenberry Hill 1.5km N. Pond extends W for 105m and narrows to a sinuous ditch c.1m across. In the pond, 30m from the easterly end, is a N-S crosswall of boulders with a central gap. Several pits in sand and gravel to the N of the pond have narrow ditch connections to pond; all are now dry. A low, grassed, mound to the N of the pond at its E end may represent excavated material. The pond may have been made for the temporary storage of live fish, netted elsewhere, for the Castle community.
E M Patterson 1982.
Observation (1982)
0.5km SE of Portencross Castle, (NS14NE 2) an excavated shallow pond in raised-beach sands retains brackish water, and overlies vertically dipping rock strata of Upper Old Red Sandstone age. Pond open to HWM on E at a crosswall of large boulders, many of which are petrographically similar to the trachyte sill of Goldenberry Hill 1.5km N. Pond extends W for 105m and narrows to a sinuous ditch c.1m across. In the pond, 30m from the easterly end, is a N-S crosswall of boulders with a central gap. Several pits in sand and gravel to the N of the pond have narrow ditch connections to pond; all are now dry. A low, grassed, mound to the N of the pond at its E end may represent excavated material. The pond may have been made for the temporary storage of live fish, netted elsewhere, for the Castle community.
E M Patterson 1982.
Field Visit (6 March 2014)
Previously identified as a fish trap, this site comprises a natural pond which sits on a low shelf just above the high water mark. The remains of a wall, an extension of a field boundary which is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6 inch map (Ayrshire Sheet X, 1858), runs past the E end of the pond and on to the foreshore.
Visited by RCAHMS (GFG, AGCH) 6 March 2014.
