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Auchen Castle Policies

Mill (Period Unassigned)(Possible), Policies (Post Medieval), Rig And Furrow (Medieval), Track(S) (Period Unassigned), Water Channel(S) (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Auchen Castle Policies

Classification Mill (Period Unassigned)(Possible), Policies (Post Medieval), Rig And Furrow (Medieval), Track(S) (Period Unassigned), Water Channel(S) (Period Unassigned)

Alternative Name(s) Auchencastle

Canmore ID 91050

Site Number NT00SE 3.01

NGR NT 063 035

NGR Description Centred NT 063 035

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/91050

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

  • Council Dumfries And Galloway
  • Parish Kirkpatrick-juxta
  • Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
  • Former District Annandale And Eskdale
  • Former County Dumfries-shire

Archaeology Notes

NT00SE 3.01 centred 063 035

Fish Ponds [NR] (at NT 0634 0356)

OS 1:2500 map, 1982.

For plantation bank and rig at NT 0668 0349 (Garpol Glen), see NT00SE 67.

Extending over a greater part of the unimproved ground to the SSE and E of the outworks of the castle NT00SE 3.00, there are extensive traces of rig-and-furrow cultivation and a number of earthwork features which post-date the cultivation. Principal among these are the remains of what seems to be a network of carriageways, with connecting avenues, extending roughly concentric with the castle on the S, W and E. Although lacking corroboration, it seems reasonable to interpret these features as the product of later emparking, perhaps never completed, possibly in the late 18th- or early 19th-century. In three places the carriageways demonstrably pre-date the field-walls that enclose the ground to the W and E of the castle.

The carriageways and avenues are of much the same size, invariably comprising a low turf-covered, cambered mound (4.7m wide) with flanking ditches measuring up to 6.8m overall. One such carriageway, which can be traced for a distance of over 500m to the ESE, approaches the S platform head-on and seems to be truncated by it (which would suggest that the leading edge of the platform had been subsequently enlarged, but this is uncertain). A typescript note by William Bennett (incorporated in the Reid manuscript collection), and dating probably to about 1910, alludes to the pioneering work of General Johnstone, one of Abercrombie's officers who served in Egypt, who 'about 100 years ago... is said to have laid out the plantations [around the castle] in representation of the famous battle [of the Nile]'. Whilst the castle may thus have been latterly utilized as a folly, it is intriguing that none of the carriageways or intervening avenues are aligned on the SE angle-tower, undoubtedly the castle's most conspicuous feature. The 'three cappit hous', however, noted by Reid, would have been on the direct sight-line of the carriageway which climbs the slope from the direction of Beattock. This would lend credence to its probable use as a summer house, or lodge, while the apron itself could have served as a useful vantage point or prospect mound.

The principal avenue from the ESE, together with the track from Valenciennes steading to that at Parks, is illustrated on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Dumfriesshire, sheet 16, 1869). At this date, both 'the three cappit hous' and the structure cut into the counterscarp bank to its rear appear to be roofed, and a rectangular (?stone) enclosure is shown beside the avenue, immediately to the E of the former.

At the outflow of the main pond on the N side of the castle, there is a water-channel which extends downslope, this perhaps a lade for a horizontal mill. A stance on the N side of the channel could be for a building. The water channel fades into an area of waterlogged ground, but immediately downslope on the same axis, and once possibly fed by the same channel, there is a suboval pit-like depression (16m from WSW to ENE by 11m transversely and up to 1.2m deep), perhaps a retting pool.

Visited by RCAHMS (IMS, PC), February 1993.

NMRS, MS/820/2.

(Cancelled NMRS records NT00SE 65 and NT00SE 66 ). The features previously identified from air photographs (RCAHMSAP 1988) as an enclosure (NT 062 035) and parts of an enclosure (NT 064 035) are in reality the discontinuous turf-covered remains of curving trackways in the vicinity of Auchen Castle (NT00SE 3.00); they probably relate to emparking in the late 18th century.

Visited by RCAHMS (IMS, PC), February 1993.

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