Martin Brann, Historic Environment Scotland
Martin Brann began his well-illustrated and informative lecture by reminding us that there are 8,000 scheduled ancient monuments in Scotland, and over 1,000 of these are in Dumfries and Galloway. Historic Environment Scotland systematically monitors the condition of monuments through a team of Field Officers working across Scotland, who also give advice to land owners, managers and occupiers. Some sensitive sites are monitored annually, others on a longer cycle. Each visit involves making an assessment on the condition of the site and writing a report.
Increasingly sites are monitored by aerial photography, benefitting from the merger of Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of Scotland in 2015. These can show up problems with erosion and animal burrowing activities, thereby resulting in follow-up inspection visits.
The frequency of routine site visits is dependent on the known condition of the monument and perceived risks. It can also be prompted by concerns expressed by members of the public. For example, it was suggested that the 10th-century Nith Bridge Cross near Thornhill should be cleaned, but HES conservators advised that this would actually accelerate erosion.
Each site visit is preceded by a letter to the owner or occupier. Ease of access varies considerably with some monuments located at roadsides while others are in remote upland locations requiring strenuous hikes. The majority of monuments are on farmland, where damage by cattle grazing and the concentration of stock around feeding troughs is a common occurrence. Under the Single Farm Payment scheme, farmers are obliged to keep the immediate area around monuments in good order, for example clear of agricultural machinery and materials; a role of field officers is to police this.
The speaker then presented a number of particular sites around the region. At Corsewall Castle in the Rhins of Galloway, the main west wall collapsed in 2014. It illustrates that scheduling is no guarantee of preservation and field officers are essentially ‘presiding over decay’ in the speaker’s words. There is a shortage of funds for major conservation work on built monuments. However, a Monuments Management Fund is available to pay for small projects which delay the rate of decay, such as vegetation clearance, fencing, surveying and occasionally site interpretation. For example, clearance of vegetation covering Cumstoun Castle near Twynholm was about to begin. Other sites which have benefitted from the fund recently include Gillespie Tower, near Boreland in Annandale; McCulloch’s Castle on the Arbigland Estate and Barr’s Hill fort near Amisfield, near the A701, north of Dumfries. HES also works jointly with other agencies to fund specific projects on monuments, for example the clearance of vegetation from the interior of Castle Haven galleried dun in Borgue parish, with the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere (Borgue ‘Place’ project) or with Forestry Land Scotland on clearing vegetation from Cally Motte in Cally Woods, Gatehouse-of-Fleet.
There has been a particular attention given to the condition of the region’s 12th-century mottes recently. With steep banks and often in pasture fields, mottes are particularly susceptible to erosion from cattle; the mottes at Balmaclellan and Wamphray were shown as examples.
Martin concluded his talk with slides of the 11th-century cross slab manufacturing site on Braidenoch Hill, on the old pack road between Carsphairn and Polmaddy, comprising a scatter of quarried stones, two with incised crosses.
D.F.D.