Rutherglen, Gallowflat

NS66SW 20 6230 6158.

(NS 6230 6158) Tumulus (NR) (Detail only shown on OS 6" map, 1968)

OS 6" map, (1934)

Mound, Gallowflat: In a public recreation-area on the N side of Main Street, Rutherglen, some 900m E of the Town Hall, there is a round grassy mound measuring 31m in diameter and about 1.6m high. It is recorded (Ure 1793) that in 1773, when the surrounding ditch was widened to make a fishpond for Gallowflat House, 'a passage 6 feet broad, and laid with unhewn stones' was discovered leading up to the summit, together with a number of artifacts dating to the early centuries AD. The mound was then only 25m in basal diameter, but it approached 3.7m in height; presumably it was reduced to its present dimensions when a brick-built structure, probably an ice-house, was later inserted into the body of the mound and a footpath constructed round its base. Although the superficial appearance of the mound has led to its tentative identification as a medieval motte (Talbot 1974), the degree of mutilation that the site has undergone makes it difficult to form an opinion of its original shape or purpose. However, the existence hereabouts of an occupation-site dating to the Roman Iron Age is suggested by the largely uniform character of the small finds recovered during the 18th-century improvements. The objects, all of which were subsequently lost, comprised two Roman bronze paterae, stamped with the maker's name CONGALLVS or CONVALLVS, three melon-shaped beads and the upper stone of a rotary quern. A stone cup-shaped lamp, which is said to have been found at the Gallowflat 'tumulus' (PSAS 1906), although not necessarily at the same time as the other items, is now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS Accession no: AQ 77).

D Ure 1793; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1906; E J Talbot 1974; RCAHMS 1978.

This mound was in a condition similar to that described by the RCAHMS, when seen in 1954.

Visited by OS (J L D) 31 March 1954.

A short excavation was carried out here in 1975 in advance of redevelopment of the land near the mound. The fishpond was uncovered at the base of the mound; it appears to have destroyed any evidence of an encircling ditch. No objects of any interest were found. One of the glass beads referred to above is now in Rutherglen Museum (Accession no: RG 80.2).

Information from press release (Glasgow A G and M) 11 December 1979, and contained in letter from A Gordon, Assistant keeper, Rutherglen Museum to OS, 24 September 1980.

(NS 6230 6158) Mound (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1980)