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Fintry, Motte

Motte (Medieval)

Site Name Fintry, Motte

Classification Motte (Medieval)

Canmore ID 45307

Site Number NS68NW 6

NGR NS 61186 86680

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/45307

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

  • Council Stirling
  • Parish Fintry
  • Former Region Central
  • Former District Stirling
  • Former County Stirlingshire

Archaeology Notes

NS68NW 6 6117 8665.

Motte, Fintry. This motte is situated on the S side of the valley of the Endrick Water and 150ft above the W end of Fintry village. It occupies the crest of a slight ridge from which the ground falls steeply to the valley floor on the NE, while in the opposite direction, to the SW, a slight hollow separates the site from a steep slope which rises 600ft to the summit of Turf Hill.

The motte (Fig. 66 and Pl. 52) consists of an oval mound which is enclosed by a broad ditch. At the present time much of the surface of the mound is covered with bracken, while the N part and most of the ditch are planted with trees. Except on the W, where it is only 9ft 6in high, the mound stands about 16ft above the present bottom of the ditch; its top is level and measures 120ft in maximum length by 100ft in breadth. A stretch of the ditch has been destroyed by erosion on the N side, but elsewhere it is still up to 40ft in width and 5ft in depth.

In early mediaeval times Fintry lay within the earldom of Lennox, and it is therefore possible that this motte was the residence from which Maldouen, 3rd Earl of Lennox, gave two charters about the middle of the 13th century.

RCAHMS 1963

NS 6117 8665. The motte at Fintry is as described above with the exception that the level top measures 38.0m E-W by 23.0m transversely. The level summit is tree and grass covered but a number of stones are visible in the sides.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (RD) 4 March 1965

Activities

Field Visit (5 July 1955)

Notebook p31, planned.

Reference (1957)

This site is noted in the ‘List of monuments discovered during the survey of marginal land (1951-5)’ (RCAHMS 1957, xiv-xviii).

Information from RCAHMS (GFG), 24 October 2012.

Field Visit (August 1978)

Fintry NS 611 866 NS68NW 6

This motte consists of an oval mound within a broad ditch. It stands to a height of 5m above the bottom of the ditch except on the W where it is only 2.9m high. Its top measures 37m from E to W by 27m transversely. On the N side part of the ditch has been destroyed by erosion.

RCAHMS 1979, visited August 1978

(RCAHMS 1963, p. 175, no. 185)

References

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