112 Annual Meeting. 



committee was formed ; the landlord, Lord Dunleath, gave his 

 consent aiid that of the occupying tenant was also readily given. 



Through this local committee a hand of ten able labouring 

 men was engaged for the investigation, and work was started on 

 the 13th July. Deeming the motte to have probably been the 

 centre of activity of the fort when in occupation, we detailed four 

 men to excavate a trench three feet wide round the crescent- 

 shaped top ; the other six men were set to work digging a 

 trench in the bottom of the inner fosse which surrounds the motte. 

 When these excavations were comi)leted, and the trenches filled 

 in and resodded, we put six men to the work of sinking pits in 

 the bailey, and four to excavating in the neighbourhood of what 

 was evidently a landing stage or pier on the north side when the 

 water was at it.s old level. In the bailey nowhere were there the 

 smallest indications of irregulai'ities on the surface to indicate 

 where hut-sites might have been ; so the pits were made at random, 

 some close to the motte, others near the enclosing vallum. 



In all places the finds were few and disappointing. The 

 total of our finds here are displayed. It is worthy of note that 

 notwithstanding that the sides of the motte and the trench 

 surrounding it are exceedingly steep, the topsoil lying on the 

 bottom of the fosse is in no place moi'e than twelve to eighteen 

 inches deep, showing that centuries of rain and weather have not 

 obliterated the original shape of the fort to any appreciable 

 extent. In the bailey the topsoil averaged about eighteen inches ; 

 it was of the ordinary brown earth usuj-1 in the district, and was 

 to all intents and purposes virgin soil, probably never tilled. At 

 some fairly recent date it has been top-dressed, to improve the 

 grass, and we found fragments of pottery, &c., from an ordinaiy 

 modern midden or farm-yard manure heap. Such we cast aside, 

 and the collection displayed represents all the finds exclusive of 

 these. 



On the top of the motte only a few much corroded small iron 

 nails were turned up. In the surroiuiding trench wei-e found a 

 few pieces of late mediaeval, or even seventeenth century glass, an 



