Loch Alterwall

ND26NSE 6 2794 6453.

(ND 2794 6453) Mound (NR)

OS 6" map, (1970)

The mound, on a former islet in Loch Alterwall, is apparently the partially excavated remnant of a small medieval castle with dry-built walls, 5ft thick (RCAHMS 1911).

It is shown as a tower on Pont's map of 1585-1600 and in 1577 mention is made of the hereditary office of 'keeper of the island and lake of Alterwall'. About 1726 the site is described as 'the ruins of an old house to which there is no access but by boat.' The loch was drained in the mid-19th century.

From the site have come fragments of a medieval jug, found in 1910 and restored and in possession of John Nicolson, Nybster, until at least 1913. Various finds from an excavation of the site formed part of the collection of Sir Francis Tress Barry, donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) in 1908. These included a latten candlestick, 6 3/8ins high, the upper part open-work (? 15th/16th century - Curle 1926); a fragment of jet

armlet, circular in section; a squarish piece of sandstone, 4 1/2ins long with incised lines resembling a merchant's mark (? gaming board); and two bone implements.

W Macfarlane 1906-8; Orig Paroch Scot 1855; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1909; RCAHMS 1911, visited 1910; F O Blundell 1913; A O Curle 1926.

A mutilated and grass-grown roughly circular mound, 23m in diameter and 2.2m high. No walling is visible but the mound contains many stones suitable for building purposes. There are no surface indications suggestive of a castle. Mr Nicolson is now dead and the fragments of the jug lost.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (N K B) 6 September 1965.

The turf-covered mound now measures 21.0m NW-SE by 18.5m. Apart from a short stretch of apparent walling exposed by excavation in the SW, the mound survives as an unintelligible collection of trenches and hummocks in an arable field.

Visited by OS (N K B) 6 September 1965.