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Excavations at Mote of Urr, 1951 and 1953

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Excavations at Mote of Urr, 1951 and 1953 ARO31: Brian Hope-Taylor’s archaeological legacy: Excavations at Mote of Urr, 1951 and 1953 By David Perry with contributions by Simon Chenery, Derek Hall, Mhairi Hastie, Davie Mason, Richard D Oram, and Catherine Smith Illustrations by Dave Munro, Christopher Fyles and Jennifer Simonson Archaeology Reports Online, 52 Elderpark Workspace, 100 Elderpark Street, Glasgow, G51 3TR 0141 445 8800 | [email protected] | www.archaeologyreportsonline.com ARO31: Brian Hope-Taylor’s archaeological legacy: Excavations at Mote of Urr, 1951 and 1953 Published by GUARD Archaeology Ltd, www.archaeologyreportsonline.com Editor Beverley Ballin Smith Design and desktop publishing Gillian Sneddon Produced by GUARD Archaeology Ltd 2018. ISBN: 978-1-9164509-0-5 ISSN: 2052-4064 Requests for permission to reproduce material from an ARO report should be sent to the Editor of ARO, as well as to the author, illustrator, photographer or other copyright holder. Copyright in any of the ARO Reports series rests with GUARD Archaeology Ltd and the individual authors. The maps are reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. All rights reserved. GUARD Archaeology Licence number 100050699. The consent does not extend to copying for general distribution, advertising or promotional purposes, the creation of new collective works or resale. Alder Archaeology brought Brian Hope-Taylor’s excavation of Mote of Urr through post-excavation analysis and reporting to a publication manuscript. That research and this publication were funded by Historic Environment Scotland. Contents MOTIF 7 Summary 7 Foreword 7 Introduction 8 Historical account of the Mote of Urr 8 Introduction and historiographical background 8 The context of mid-twelfth century colonisation in Galloway 11 Walter de Berkeley and the Lordship of Urr 13 The heirs of de Berkeley 17 The Wars of Independence 20 Later medieval Urr 23 Mote of Urr in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 24 Conclusions 25 The excavation 27 The archive 27 The excavation origins and organisation 28 The site location 29 The results of the excavation 31 Phase I 31 Phase II 33 Phase III 36 The environmental evidence 39 Environmental assessment 39 The animal bone 43 The material cultural evidence 44 The pottery 44 Chemo-typing of pottery samples 51 The artefacts 57 Iron 57 Stone 57 Clay pipe 57 Burnt materials 57 General discussion and conclusions 59 Acknowledgements 62 Bibliography 62 List of Figures Figure 1: Location map of the Mote of Urr 6 Figure 2: Lords of Galloway and Balliol family tree 12 Figure 3: Detailed map of the Stewarty of Kirkbubright, highlighting parishes and places 13 mentioned in the text Figure 4: Map of Scotland and northern England with places and mottes mentioned in the text 15 Figure 5: Berkeley, Balliol, Umfraville and Percy family tree 18 Figure 6: Site plan, after contour plan by R J C Atkinson and P R Ritchie in 1951, with profile 30 across motte Figure 7: Plan of Phase I features with location of sections 32 Figure 8: West section of Moat Cutting A, with section through part of the bailey 34 Figure 9a and b: Composite cross-section of the top of the motte: east section of Octant A 34 (F-D), and east section (D-G) of Quadrant I Figure 10: Plan of Phase II features with location of sections 35 List of Figures (continued) Figure 11: North section (A-B-C-D) of Quadrant I 36 Figure 12: Plan of Phase III features with location of sections 37 Figure 13: Intermediate section (E-C) of Quadrant I 38 Figure 14: Pottery, Redware jugs, rims Cat Nos 1-10 46 Figure 15: Pottery, Redware jugs, rims Cat Nos 11-20 47 Figure 16: Pottery, Redware jugs, handles Cat Nos 21-26 48 Figure 17: Pottery, Redware jugs, figurative and decorated sherds Cat Nos 27-37 49 Figure 18: Pottery, Redware jugs, bases Cat Nos 38-47 50 Figure 19: Pottery, unusual forms and Whiteware Cat Nos 48-50 51 Figure 20: Na2O versus V concentration plot of Mote of Urr (MU) material compared to 51 redware database training set Figure 21: Dendrogram from cluster analysis comparing Mote of Urr (MU) with Caerlaverock 52 Castle (CC) material Figure 22: Plot of PC1 versus PC2 from principal components analysis (PCA) comparing Mote 53 of Urr (MU) material to redware database regional training set Figure 23: Plot of PC1 versus PC3 from principal components analysis (PCA) comparing Mote 53 of Urr (MU) material to most relevant sites in redware database regional training set Figure 24: Plot of PC2 versus PC3 from focused site principal components analysis (PCA) 54 Figure 25: Dendrogram from cluster analysis comparing Mote of Urr (MU) with local regional 55 material from Glenluce Abbey (GL) (tiles) and Hayknowes Farm (HF), Annan (early material) Figure 26: Dendrogram from cluster analysis comparing whiteware samples from Mote of Urr 55 (MU) with selected other white gritty ware material Figure 27: Plot of PC1 versus PC2 from PCA analysis comparing ‘whiteware’ samples from Mote 56 of Urr (MU) with selected other white gritty ware material Figure 28: Iron horseshoe nails, Cat Nos 2, 3; clay pipe, Cat No 10 59 List of Plates Plate 1: Aerial photograph of Mote of Urr from the east. © Historic Environment Scotland, 9 D 66977 CN Plate 2: Photograph of excavation team (in 1951?). Brian Hope-Taylor is in the back row, 28 second from the left; his dog was called Simon. © Historic Environment Scotland (Brian Hope-Taylor Collection, SC 756923) Plate 3: Plan of Moat of Urr (with parish boundary added) by James O’Brien, Lance-Corporal, 29 Royal Engineers. Undated but probably about time of Ordnance Survey’s resurvey of Kirkcudbrightshire, 1893-4.© Historic Environment Scotland (Brian Hope-Taylor Collection, DP 054516) Plate 4: General view of Mote of Urr from the north. © Historic Environment Scotland (Brian 31 Hope-Taylor Collection, SC 937693) Plate 5: View of the Phase I motte surface in Quadrant I in 1953. Looking north-west; note 33 the bank visible at the base of the section A-B and Pit 6 on the edge of the motte. Scale in feet. © Historic Environment Scotland (Brian Hope-Taylor Collection, SC 938014) Plate 6: View of central pit in Quadrant I in 1953. Looking south. Large stones are on its 33 southern edge. Scale in feet. © Historic Environment Scotland (Brian Hope-Taylor Collection, SC 937972) Plate 7: The west section of the trench across the moat in 1951. Looking south-west. Scale 33 in feet. © Historic Environment Scotland (Brian Hope-Taylor Collection, SC 938020) ARO31: Brian Hope-Taylor’s archaeological legacy: Excavations at Mote of Urr, 1951 and 1953 List of Plates (continued) Plate 8: View of Posthole 2 (foreground) and Posthole 1 (middle distance) and Pit 1 36 (background) in Octant E in 1951. Looking north. Scale in feet. © Historic Environment Scotland (Brian Hope-Taylor Collection, SC 756775) Plate 9: Excavating the Phase III rubble layer (Layer II) in Octant A in 1951. Looking east. 38 Scale in feet. © Historic Environment Scotland (Brian Hope-Taylor Collection, SC 937839) List of Tables Table 1: Correlation of phasing between 1951 and 1953 excavations 27 Table 2: Radiocarbon dates 31 Table 3: Composition of soil samples 39 Table 4: Catalogue of animal bone and molluscs 39-42 Table 5: Medieval pottery catalogue 45-46 Table 6: Catalogue of artefacts 58 © Archaeology Reports Online, 2018. All rights reserved. 5 ARO31: Brian Hope-Taylor’s archaeological legacy: Excavations at Mote of Urr, 1951 and 1953 Elgin Inverness Aberdeen Perth Dundee Stirling Dunfermline Glasgow Edinburgh Site Location Mote of Urr Dumfries Castle Douglas 282000 566000 Site Location 282000 564000 0 1 km © Crown copyright. All rights reserved. N Licence number AL 100049514 Figure 1: Location map of the Mote of Urr. 6 © Archaeology Reports Online, 2018. All rights reserved. ARO31: Brian Hope-Taylor’s archaeological legacy: Excavations at Mote of Urr, 1951 and 1953 MOTIF on the site of Yeavering in Northumberland, which was eventually to lead to the identification In days of old, when knights were colde, of Yeavering as Bede’s Ad Gefrin (Murray 2005, And spelling not so hotte, 219). The rest, as they say, is history, and the Fitzdouglas lived upon a Mote – remarkable discoveries at the site of Edwin’s Fitzpercy on a Motte. palace and in particular Building E (the assembly grandstand) and associated structures have Each spent his life in warlike strife, given the site of Yeavering a pre-eminent place In plote and counter-plotte – in Anglo-Saxon archaeology which overshadows Fitzdouglas far preferred a Mote, all other sites which Hope Taylor worked on. Fitzpercy yearned for Motte. Understandably this iconic site dominated his life’s work from that year, although he excavated Although the feud is continued many more medieval sites in England in the ‘Twixt Englishman and Scot, decades following, until his death in 2001. Fitzdouglas now despises Mote – Fitzpercy sneers at Motte. Like some other archaeologists Hope-Taylor did not find it easy to write up the results of his This little quarrel points the moral – excavations for final publication. He apparently History is tommy-rotte; received a ‘severe dressing-down’ from Mortimer Thank God you’ve got a Motte (or Mote), Wheeler for not writing up Yeavering in the Don’t envy Mote (or Motte). expected time-scale (Taylor 2005, 204). However Source - Discovery and excavation in Scotland the list of sites which he did publish in one way or 1951. Copyright: Archaeology Scotland. another is a wide-ranging roll-call of exceedingly significant places in the history of Anglo-Saxon Summary England/Northumbria: Old Windsor, (1958), Preston Manor (1953), Lowe Hill in Wakefield Excavations at Mote of Urr, near Dalbeattie, (1958), Bamburgh (1960), Doon Hill in East Lothian Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in 1951 and (another Anglian hall, 1966), York Minster (1971), 1953 produced evidence of three phases of Devil’s Dyke in Cambridgeshire (1977) (Murray occupation.
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