Monument record 834 - BORVE CASTLE, BENBECULA

NF75SE 12 7733 5050.

(NF 7733 5050) Borve Castle (NR) (Ruins)
OS 6'map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1904)

Borve Castle, Benbecula. The ruins of an oblong tower, 60ft by 36 1/2ft over walls 5 to 9ft thick, stand to 30ft high, indicating at least three storeys. The entrance is in the south wall, 6ft above the ground.
NSA (1845) states 'there is no tradition in regard to the time or person by whom it was built,' but MacGibbon and Ross attribute it to Lady Amie, wife of John of Isla, in the latter half of the 14th century.
RCAHMS 1928; NSA (R Maclean) 1845; D MacGibbon and T Ross 1889.

The remains of Borve Castle are generally as described above; the E, W and S walls stand to the height mentioned but the N wall is reduced to a rubble bank scarcely 1.0m high.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (J T T) 25 May 1965.

Borve Castle is of at least three periods, the building sequence being, the erection of a nearly square tower to the E, the addition to this on the W of a smaller building of the same width, and the thickening of both the original E gable and later W gable to the interior, presubaly as floor scarcements. No sign of vaulting is visible in either section. The walls are so fragmentary as to make dating difficult, although the 14th century date assigned to the whole is parfectly possible. The E portion could be even earlier.
H B Millar and J Kirkhope 1965d.

The monument consists of the ruined Borve Castle, a rectangular keep
or hall-house of probabale late 14th-century date. The castle measures, externally, some 18.9m E-W by 11.3m N-S, with walls which are on average 2.75m thick, narrowing internally at first and second floor level. The remains survive to a maximum height of 9m and show evidence for at least 2 timber floors above a basement. The N wall has almost entirely gone. The main entrance, reached latterly via a projecting forebuilding, was at the centre of the S wall at first-floor level. The construction is of rubble set in an extremely hard mortar.
Information from Historic Scotland, (undated) scheduling document.

The area to be scheduled includes the upstanding remains of the keep and an area around it, which is likely to contain below-ground remains and evidence of structures and activities associated with the period of construction and use of the castle. Is measures 100m NE-SW by 90m NW-SE.
Entry in the Schedule of Monuments, HS

NF 7733 5050 A desk-based survey and non-invasive site assessment was made of the ruin, in association with Simpson and Brown Architects.
Sponsor: Southern Isles Amenity Trust
Addyman, T 2000, 97

D and T MacGibbon and Ross, The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the 12th to the 18th Centuries, 115-7 plan, fig. 64, illust. fig. 65 (Bibliographic reference). SWE4394.

NSA, 1845, The New Statistical Account of Scotland..., Vol. 14, Inverness-shire, 188 (Bibliographic reference). SWE4553.

RCAHMS, 1928, The RCAHMCS 9th Report & Inventory: Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles, 100, No. 342 illust. (Bibliographic reference). SWE5587.

H B and J Millar and Kirkhope, 1965d, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 20-1 (Bibliographic reference). SWE33334.

Council for Scottish Archaeology, 2000, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland (Bibliographic reference). SWE41184.