[Ipflo]

THANKS for the picture.

I always wondered how it looked liked. I could not find anywhere a picture, and now it is a there. It is a simple modest house with a nice and rustic symmetry, but it would have an impressive view from the windows, if I understand the map well.

[Gordon]

The view would indeed have been impressive, even more so if they hadn't stolen stone from the ruin to build this house.
This is not the picture I have seen before, you had asked for one which illustrated how they sat together, and there exists a photo over old Bothwell castle with the 'new' house in the background. However I can't seem to be able to track that one down, and it showed little detail of the new house.

[Gordon]

That picture...

[Duncan]

Now the question is ----- can they be made to put the stone back?!?

[Gordon]

I wish, but the new 'castle' has gone, and so has most of it's stone....who knows where?

[Ipflo]

thanks for the picture, great to see them both at once

[Gordon]

More miscellaneous pics of Bothwell.

Ruins of the North east tower.


Footings for drawbridge at 13thc gatehouse.


Ornate stonework recovered from debris.


Variety of cannonballs recovered from the site.


More ornate stonework


The southwest tower from the Douglas Hall


A Garderobe.


Dais and other windows in Hall


Springing of vaulting for chapel's vaulted ceiling


The same in context


Piscina in chapel


The base of the central post which supported the floors of the donjon when intact.


View to river from highest accesible point of Donjon.


18thc Graffiti.

[Duncan]

I'm impressed!!
You must have gotten them to open up for you again, very well done!!
I don't remember #2 at all.
Whats the plaque say in # 11?
and any guesses what graffiti says and dates?

[Gordon]

The plaque identifies the piscina, or baisin, used by priests to wash the chalice etc during servics in the chapel, so you can guess which part of the building I was in. The chapel was on the first floor. Some of the other pics show the ornate springing for the vaulted ceiling of the chapel, long gone, cannonballs found in the castle, and stone fragments collected from the site. These are all on display at the first of three vaults under the Douglasses great hall.
The graffitti seems to be dated 1785 for the top one, with the name David Ure, who happens to be the man who wrote 'The History of Rutherglen and Kilbride', one of my old established sources- see Carmunnock.
The text of this was an extended version of his entry in The Old Statistical Account, he having written for both parishes. Chances are it was the same man. His methodology and description of local natural history and local fossils in the book, mark him down as a very influential and noteworthy early palaentologist.
The other names are John Anderson, and below at the bottom and very unclear in the pic, John Brown. The dates are pretty similar to the first. According to the current guide, it is alleged that David Livingstone's name also appears somewhere, though he says this may be a later forgery. Livingstone of course was a local man from Blantyre.
I'd never taken much notice of the graffiti before. It is at the top of the turnpike in the north west corner of the donjon.

#2 is the footings for the drawbridge at the uncompleted 13thc gatehouse.
I'll go in and edit some captions for the pics.

Rev. David Ure Bio

[AJR]

Another old print / engraving of Bothwell Castle from the 1800s.

Attached thumbnail(s)

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