422 KiNNELHEAD ToWER. 



James Johnstone, first Earl of Hartfell, acquired from Robert 

 Johnstone of Bearholm the lands of Easter Kinnelhead. In 

 Grieve's Guide to Moffat there occurs: — ■" At one time Middlegill 

 was the principal seat of David de Lindesay, Baron of Evandale, 

 whose peel house stood at Kinnelhead." On communicating 

 with the authoress of this guide, she could give me no definite 

 information as to where she got the statement I have quoted. 

 The Lindsays at one time owned land in this neighbourhood, but 

 their principal seat was at Crawford, where the ruins of their 

 castle are still to be seen; so that it seems very unlikely to 

 have been built by any of that family. The site of the ruins is 

 about two hundred yards or so west from Kinnel Water. It is 

 surrounded by very rough and rocky ground, having generally a 

 slope to the Kinnel. The north and south walls have been 

 sandwiched in between two natural mounds or hillocks, which rise 

 from ten to twenty feet above the general slope of the ground, 

 the tailing of the mound slopes being cut away to allow the walls 

 to be built. The space between the south wall and the first 

 division wall has been excavated much deeper (probably to form 

 a cellar or underground apartment of some kind) than any of the 

 other divisions shown on the accompanying plan. This cellar 

 has become filled up with stones which have fallen from the 

 walls, and I am unable to state how deep it is to the original 

 floor level. The first division wall (that is counting from the 

 south) is founded on the top of the solid rock, and on the south 

 face of this wall the rock is shown as a perpendicular cliff about 

 6 feet high before the stone wall begins. The building has 

 been originally divided into three compartments, the centre one 

 being nearly double the width of the other two. Outside c.f 

 these places there appears to have been a walled-in outer court 

 of considerable extent, and at the south-end of this court the 

 foundations are seen of a small square off-shoot, the purpose of 

 which seems to have been to cover the entrance to the court 

 and buildings, as there are traces of a roadway leading to this 

 part still visible. From the east wall of this off-shoot the founda- 

 tions of a wall 4 feet 6 inches in width can be traced southwards 

 for 238 feet. Small portions of the west and division walls are 

 all the faced masonry that remains, although the sites of the 

 others shown on the plan can still be clearly made out. A great 

 number of the stones at present seen in the walls are of cyclopean 



