Dunlop Hill

NS44NW 1 4019 4940

(NS 4019 4940) Castle (NR) (Site of)

OS 6" map (1970)

(NS 4020 4941) Site of Castle (NR) (applied to a roughly circular, pecked area, 18m in diameter)

(NS 4025 4940 - NS 4028 4941) Trench (NAT)

OS 25" map (1856)

It is said that a castle stood on the top of Dunlop Hill. No vestiges of it are now visible, but Mr G Howie, of Dunlop, states that he remembers seeing a small portion of what was said to be one of the walls about 70 or 80 years ago. It was a sort of bank, quite crumbled down and overgrown with grass. Since then, the ruins of a building of considerable extent have been removed and the ground cultivated. A trench, 3ft deep, and of uncertain purpose, runs in a straight line about half way down the E side of the hill.

Name Book 1856

The topographic information above is also given in 1848, the castle is thought to be that of Godfrey de Ross (12th century); it probably occupied the site of an earlier fort. The slight inequalities now to be seen on the surface of the hill could be associated with either the castle or the fort.

J Shedden-Dobie 1884; F J Bayne 1935

The crown of the hill measures 50 by 48 paces; on the side there are the remains of a ditch 4 paces wide.

J Smith 1895

No traces of a building or fortifications can be seen on top of Dunlop Hill. The ditch noted in the Ordnance Survey Name Book (ONB) and published in 1856 is 3.0m wide and 0.5m deep. It runs straight down the E face of the hill to a small stream. Its purpose is not apparent.

SW of the crown of the hill, a short spur has been cut through by a ditch about 20.0m long and 0.3m deep. It has a flat bottom 4.0m wide. It is doubtless the ditch mentioned by Smith and may be connected with the castle.

Visited by OS (DS) 2 August 1956 and (WDJ) 19 November 1965

Although both the ditches previously mentioned are artificial, neither can be readily placed in an archaeological context. The narrow E slope ditch is at too steep an angle to be an approach way, and does not seem to have functioned as a drain. The non-defensive trench on the SW crosses behind a rocky spur and would not control the gentle approach route further E. On the lower southern terraces of the hill, there has been intensive post-medieval land usage.

The E side of the summit area is slightly sunken and nettle-covered, but other occupation evidence may have been destroyed by the insertion (probably in the 1960's) of a military bunker system beneath the centre of the summit area; only a small concrete entrance and ventilation shaft shows on the surface.

The farmer at Over Borland (NS 399 492) has found nothing in this area, and believes no foundations were uncovered during the military installations.

Visited by OS (JRL) 15 October 1982.