Borland Bridge

NS51NE 1 5855 1738

(NS 5855 1738) Bronze Age Burials found 1921 & 1938 (NAT)

OS 6" map (1971)

Steven notes that in 1849 " a number of ancient urns", were found in a sand and gravel pit at the SW of Castle Hill. One urn, containing the calcined bones of a child, was preserved. Warrick then mentions that two urns, in the possession of Lord Bute were found in the spring of 1898 " in a sandhill close to Borland Mill." The larger urn was broken, but the smaller, almost entire, is of yellow clay and about 5" high. Both urns are crudely ornamented and were half-filled with calcined bones. Pieces of charred wood were found beside them.

H J Steven 1899; J Warrick 1899; A Morrison 1968; A E Truckell 1966

Fairbairn (1922) notes that in the Dick Institute Museum, Kilmarnock, is an exhibit labelled "Broken cinerary urn found at Borland Castle, 1899". Visiting Castle Hill in 1921, he noticed a deposit of burnt bone in the face of the sand pit. Fragments of a collared cinerary urn (now in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum) were found in the sand pit in 1938, and excavations revealed layer of ashes and fragments of burnt bones. A beaker sherd (of indeterminate type, now in Kilmarnock Museum) was picked up nearby in 1939. Fragments of a cinerary urn from Borland (Thornhill Museum) which were in Thornhill Museum in 1894, are now in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum (A E Truckell 1966). Excavations in the NW corner of the sandpit in 1939 revealed a shaft lined with a wood, a fragment of a Medieval jug was found in it. M'Leod (1940) suggest that it was used as a kitchen-refuse dump for Borland Castle (see also NS51NE 4 and NS51NE 5 ). D L Clarke 1970

Accession no of cinerary urn in Glasgow Art Galleries and Museum is A 6533f.

I H Longworth 1984