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Maxwelton

Motte (Medieval)

Site Name Maxwelton

Classification Motte (Medieval)

Canmore ID 65088

Site Number NX88NW 1

NGR NX 8173 8971

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/65088

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

  • Council Dumfries And Galloway
  • Parish Glencairn
  • Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
  • Former District Nithsdale
  • Former County Dumfries-shire

Archaeology Notes

NX88NW 1 8173 8971.

(NX 8173 8971) Mote (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

The motte at Maxwelton rises from the centre of a natural gravel ridge. Its level, oval summit measures 70 ft NNW-SSE by 60 ft transversely. Some 13 ft below the summit on the SSE is a ditch, 26 ft wide, and an upcast mound 3 ft high on the lower side. As it passes W, it flattens to a terrace, but at the NNW end of the ridge the ditch resumes, 16 ft wide, but shallow, with another, shallower, ditch 30 ft beyond. The E side has been mutilated by cultivation. The counterscarps of the ditches are very stony, as if they had been faced, or more probably surmounted by a wall. There is no sign of a bailey.

RCAHMS 1920, visited 1912; R W Feachem 1956

A motte generally as described by RCAHM. It is grass-covered and has no evidence of stonework.

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (BS) 25 August 1977

Activities

Field Visit (27 January 1992)

This motte rises from the crest of a ridge at the leading edge of the first terrace above the haughland on the N side of the Cairn Water. The motte is situated in a small clearing in a plantation which has encroached on the edge of the site. The motte comprises a mound about 4m in height, which may in part be natural, with a level, oval summit measuring 21.5m from NNW to SSE by 19m transversely. There is a ditch around the base of the knoll on the NNW, the line of which is continued by an upcast bank on the N to E arc. The S and SE sides of the knoll drop away down to a steep slope to the valley floor.

(Nith 329)

Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 27 January 1992

Field Visit (1998)

This site was visited in the course of fieldwork by Dr. T.C. Welsh in 1998

for further details, see MS/1346 and MS/737/12

References

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