Ayr Citadel in Context: the decline and fall of Scotland’s ... Journal 2020-21REV4-CALIBRI-… · pentagonal or hexagonal on plan with projecting bastions at the angles, as this

44THE CASTLE STUDIES GROUP JOURNAL NO. 34

Detail of John Slezer’s view of Ayr from the north-west, showing the citadel and St John’s Church, publishedin ‘Theatrum Scotiae’, 1693 (Reproduced by courtesy of the National Library of Scotland). See also p. 8.

Ayr Citadel in Context: the decline and fall of Scotland’s Cromwellian forts

Ayr Citadel in Context: the decline andfall of Scotland’s Cromwellian forts

Louise Turner


Ayr Citadel in Context: the decline andfall of Scotland’s Cromwellian forts

Louise TurnerIntroductionThis article forms a companion piece to apaper devoted to the Cromwellian Citadel atAyr which was presented in Irvine in October2019 to a conference on Ayrshire castles.¹While the original paper focused entirely onthe site at Ayr, in this follow-up, I have takenthe opportunity to consider Ayr Citadel in awider context, alongside the other fourpurpose-built Cromwellian bastioned forts inScotland. The focus here is not so much ontheir military function, but rather on how allhave fared following their short period ofactive use during the Commonwealth. Muchof the evidence for their survival or destructioncan be inferred from historic mapping, but inrecent decades developer-funded archaeologyhas also yielded insights into sub-surface levelsof preservation upon all five sites.Scotland’s Cromwellian forts: origins,construction and occupationBefore examining the later history of thesesites, an opportunity should be taken to sum-marise their historical background, and tobriefly characterise their form. The circum-stances behind their creation are presented indetail by Alan Tait, in a paper which still pro-vides a comprehensive introduction to theScottish sites and places them in the widercontext of Great Britain and Ireland.²Tait notes that across Scotland, five custom-built forts were created between 1650 and1655, during the Commonwealth period.Two were located in Lowland Scotland: at thewest coast port of Ayr and the east coast portof Leith respectively. The remaining threewere sited in the Highlands: at Inverlochy onthe north-west coast, Inverness on the north-east coast, and in a more central, southernlocation at Perth. The latter was the only site

which could not be described as coastal incharacter; instead, its position was riverine,with the fort constructed on the west bank ofthe River Tay, just south of the town.All five were substantial fortifications, of a dis-tinctive form which is typically quadrilateral,pentagonal or hexagonal on plan with projectingbastions at the angles, as this plan of Ayr Citadel,based on a 1654 drawing executed by HansEwald Tessin, clearly demonstrates (Fig. 1).³ Theroots of these complex fortified structures laywithin continental Europe, where the form hadbeen developed in response to the increasinguse of gunpowder artillery. Their continentalorigins are made clear in their alternative name- trace italienne – and their finished character,which would have been unfamiliar to mostScots, with the exception perhaps of those whohad travelled abroad in Europe.Their military and strategic background has beensummarised by Tait, who provided in addition adetailed description of each. Fortifications of thistype are substantial in size, and their impositionupon a pre-existing urban landscape would havecreated a striking and intrusive visual feature,probably invoking a very different response fromthe indigenous population than the castles andtower-houses which had evolved almostorganically within the landscape from themedieval period onwards.Any hostile feelings amongst the localpopulation may have been further stoked bythe fact the building of these citadels oftenimpacted on their town’s existing historicstructures. For example, the fort at Invernesswas built using material from Greyfriars’Church and St Mary’s Chapel within the town,and from the more distant abbeys of Beaulyand Kinloss.⁴ The situation at Leith was similar,with raw building materials derived from theold hospice and church of St Nicholas and itscounterpart and part of the fort’s footprintencroaching upon the burial ground of theparish church of North Leith.⁵



Ayr’s was also a similar story: as well asoccupying the site of an earlier medievalcastle, it also incorporated the medievalparish church of St John and again requiredthe destruction of not only much of thechurch building, but also part of the burialground. Much of the medieval parish churchwas also robbed of stone for inclusion ineither the fort’s defences or its internalbuildings, with only the tower retained foruse as an ancillary structure.Ayr Citadel also reputedly included stonederived from Ardrossan Castle.⁶ Thisparticular castle was located further to thenorth up the Ayrshire coast and it formed partof the lands held by the Montgomerie Earls

of Eglinton. Although the 7th Earl ofEglinton had originally supportedParliament, he switched sides prior tothe death of Charles I and consequentlyfell from favour, leaving his property tobe plundered as required.When the construction of these struc-tures encroached so blatantly upon exist-ing places of worship and on the historicfabric of a town and its environs, it iseasy to interpret their creation as an actof aggression and subjugation. And yetcontemporary documentary evidencefrom Ayr suggests otherwise. Of all fiveforts, Ayr has arguably been subject tomore detailed study: here, the level ofpreservation is sufficient to merit inter-est amongst its local community andregular attention from historians. WhyAyr Citadel survived better than its coun-terparts will be considered in more detailat a later point; for the moment, it isworth highlighting several detailedappraisals undertaken over the past 120years.⁷ Together, these publications haveprovided valuable insights into the rela-

tionship between the fort’s garrison andthe town, gleaned through reference toa wealth of documentary sources.

What we learn from Pagan’s account inparticular⁸ is that Ayr was sympathetic to theParliamentary cause during the War of theThree Kingdoms, and that the town was farfrom cowed by the decision to place theCromwellian fort quite literally on itsdoorstep. The medieval church building wascramped and dilapidated, its loss acceptedquite amicably once assurances were giventhat a new place of worship would beprovided. Beyond this inconvenience, anygrievances expressed throughout the yearsof the fort’s occupation involved the low-leveldisorder that might be expected in anygarrison town. During construction, when

Fig.1. Plan of Ayr Citadel (after Hans Ewald Tessin,Die Stadt und das Fort zu Ayre, 1654)



soldiers were billeted with families, therewere complaints that women were kept fromattending church on the Sabbath because theywere busy preparing meals for their lodgers.Later, there were frequent incidents ofbrawling but these tended to involve thesoldiers themselves, rather than thetownspeople, with complaints stemming fromthe disturbance incurred.⁹ During the yearsthat Ayr Citadel was occupied by Cromwelliantroops, some members of the garrison grewso enmeshed within their adoptive town that- following the garrison’s demobilisation -they remained there, marrying into localfamilies, providing capital for mercantileschemes, and even in some cases becomingburgesses in their own right.¹⁰The picture painted at Ayr by the researchesof Pagan and others is therefore not so muchone of a hostile installation imposed upon thecommunity, but rather of an inconvenientannexe to the town which ultimately becameintegrated within it. Its construction also hadan additional environmental benefit in puttingan end to the incursions of windblown sandwhich had plagued the town for centuries, byfinally stabilising a substantial portion of thistroublesome area of coastal ground.¹¹Such a positive relationship may not, however,have been the case for all of these installations.Sources record how the initial proclamation atEdinburgh which announced the building of theforts was greeted with some hostility,¹² and atleast one of the fortifications – that at Inverlochy– was built rapidly using earth and timber asopposed to dressed stone, a choice which -appears to suggest military expediency. The fortat Inverness, too, may have been built quickly,with the final stone-built structure potentiallyoccupying the site of an earlier set of defenceserected c. 1651. But in most cases the lengthsto which their builders went to ensure that theseforts made the correct impression are demon-strated by their costs, with each fort requiring

around £100,000 sterling to build.¹³ At Ayr,where ground conditions proved particularlychallenging, the budget proved so exorbitantthat Oliver Cromwell asked if the building hadbeen built of gold.¹⁴These elaborate and robust structures con-trasted greatly with their counterparts in Ire-land, where the forts were smaller, and muchcheaper to build, and England, where the mainmaterial used in the construction of contempo-rary forts at Carlisle and Hull was brick.¹⁵

The Restoration and beyond – 1650-1750

The astronomical costs of constructionreflected the fact that these forts wereintended as permanent monuments to thepower and might of the Commonwealth.Instead, they were destined to becomeobsolete within a very short period. By 1660,the monarchy had been restored, and theforts were decommissioned shortly after.Of the five Cromwellian bastioned forts built inScotland Inverness retained its garrison until1662 for reasons of security.¹⁶ Only two, how-ever, retained a long-term function as militarysites. These were the forts at Leith and Inverlo-chy. In the case of Inverlochy, this involved theconstruction of a new stone fortification whichappears to have occupied virtually the samefootprint as the earlier, earth-and-timber struc-ture. Information relating to Inverlochy isreadily available, as it has recently been subjectto a detailed study,¹⁷ undertaken as part of theFort William and Inverlochy Archaeologyproject, which provides us with a comprehen-sive summary of the fort’s development.Perhaps it was those very strategic reasonswhich lay behind Inverlochy’s initialimpermanence – namely, that its rapidconstruction reflected practical defensiveconcerns – which ultimately led to itslongevity, for by 1690 it had already beenreplaced by a stone bastioned fort built at thebehest of General McKay, William III’s military



commander in Scotland during the 1689-90period.¹⁸ It appears to have been furthermodified in the early part of the eighteenthcentury by Hanoverian forces, resulting in themulti-period structure noted by Cruden, whoidentified at least two phases of building in itssurviving masonry.¹⁹A mere four decades had passed between theraising of the five Cromwellian forts and thebuilding of a Williamite structure erected onsimilar principles on the site at Inverlochy.What of Leith, the only other bastioned fortwhich found later use for military purposes?Unlike the other Cromwellian structures, thefort at Leith appears to have occupied at leastpart of the site of an earlier bastioned fort builtc. 1549 to house French troops brought intoScotland during the Rough Wooing,²⁰ thoughthis may not have been intended as a perma-nent structure. We know from the OrdnanceSurvey Name Book that during the mid-nine-teenth century, part of the former Leith Citadelwas in use as an artillery station and a garrisonwhich provided accommodation for men andhorses,²¹ but this does not necessarily implythat the site was in continuous use as a militaryinstallation throughout the post-Common-wealth period. In fact, reference to the firstedition Ordnance Survey map suggests that atthis time ‘Leith Fort’ occupied a group of build-ings which were not even associated with anydefences. By this time, only fragmentaryremains of walling derived from theCromwellian fort survived, including one gate-way, as the Ordnance Survey noted in theiraccompanying Name Book.²²In the immediate aftermath of the Restoration,the initial fate of all five forts appears to havebeen the same. Their garrisons weredemobilised and the forts themselvesdismantled. The extent of the destructionwhich ensued is, however, uncertain. AtInverlochy, we could perhaps infer that theoriginal earth and timber defences had to be

razed in order to allow the construction of thereplacement stone fort on the same site. Butof the remaining four, the extent of thedestruction is ambiguous. In the case ofInverness, documentary sources reveal thatdespite earlier instructions for the fort’sremoval, as late as 1675 1,000 cartloads ofstone were removed from the fort for theconstruction of a new pier.²³Roy’s Military Survey of Scotland, which wassurveyed between 1747 and 1755, shows theoutlines of all five forts in their entirety (Fig. 2),which suggests that all then survived asprominent visible features in the landscape ortownscape. However, in only two examples -Ayr and Inverlochy - are internal structuresshown as upstanding within the defended area.We know that by this time Inverlochy hadentered its later phase of use as a Hanoverianfort and garrison, but Ayr’s situation is moreambiguous and it is unclear whether we areseeing the retention of existing Cromwellianbuildings or the creation of new ones. Since theremaining three are represented only by theirexternal defences, we can infer that all internalbuildings had by this time been entirelyremoved.That the outer defences at Perth were leftlargely undisturbed is supported by an entry inthe Ordnance Survey Name Book forPerthshire,²⁴ which suggests that there wereindividuals present within the community whoat that time, that is, the mid-nineteenthcentury, remembered seeing the defences asdistinct features within the landscape. This issupported by the Great Reform Act (1832) planof Leith, which appears to show the sites ofthree angled bastions and stretches ofintervening wall surviving as earthworks on asite which appears to have been reduced tosome extent by coastal erosion. This wouldimply that any cut stone used to face thedefensive walls and ditches, had, however,been removed for use elsewhere.



Fig.2. Scotland’s Cromwellian Citadels, c. 1750



Moving beyond the map evidence, we find acommon thread which links each site: everyfort represents a sizeable chunk of land locatedclose to a town or burgh, and as such, it has thepotential to become a valuable piece of realestate. Small wonder, then, that following thedecommissioning of these military structures,the sites were invariably gifted by King CharlesII to those who supported him and whomerited rewards for good service.At least one – the fort at Perth - was gifted tothe town, in return for its loyalty to the Crown.The situation regarding Inverness is moredifficult to establish: recent work by Kennedysuggests that the land for the fort was feuedby the town,²⁵ but the period following itsdecommission, sufficent ambiguity remainedwith regards to ownership to hamstringefforts to remove it.²⁶ Later nineteenth-century sources, in particular the OrdnanceSurvey Name Book, suggest that there wereproperties within the footprint of the fortwhich belonged to the burgh, but in this casethe king does not appear to have formallygranted the fort to the civic authorities,perhaps because, as with Ayr, the relationshipbetween town and garrison seems to havebeen ambivalent.Two of the forts were granted to individuals.The fort at Leith was gifted to John Maitland,2nd Earl, and later 1st Duke, of Lauderdale,²⁷while Ayr was gifted to Hugh Montgomerie,7th Earl of Eglinton, who had belatedlyabandoned the Parliamentary cause andsuffered the consequences throughout theduration of the Commonwealth.Lauderdale’s interests in Leith fort werepurely financial, and he sold it soon after tothe City of Edinburgh for a substantial sum.²⁸By contrast, Eglinton retained the site ofAyr’s fort for his own use. He established theburgh of Montgomerieston there, setting upa rival concern to neighbouring Ayr, and over

the next few decades embarked on severalindustrial enterprises. The first of these wasa textile mill, which employed cheapindentured labour made up of vagrants whowere apprehended while wanderingthroughout Montgomerie’s jurisdiction inRenfrewshire and Ayrshire.²⁹ They wereprovided with food, lodgings and clothing,but no wages.Despite having such favourable terms for trad-ing, both locally and further afield, Eglinton’sconcern could not compete due to the inferiorquality of his products. The textile factory wasreplaced by a brewery, where the erection ofa new custom-built structure was recorded forthe production of whisky and ‘various watersfrom herbs’, apparently on the site of analready-functioning brewery.³⁰ This brewerywas still in operation by the 1750s, when Roy’smap was surveyed. Unfortunately, we have noway of knowing whether the brewery, and thetextile factory before it, occupied some of thefort’s original internal structures, or whetherthe buildings had been razed and entirelyreplaced. The brewery appears to haveremained in operation over an extendedperiod, though Montgomerieston itself passedout of the possession of the Montgomeriefamily and into the hands of the earls of Cassilisfollowing its sale by the widowed Countess ofEglinton, who was a member of the Kennedyfamily. Changes made to the site appear tohave been minimal during this period.

Scotland’s Cromwellian forts in modern times

Historic mapping of the mid-nineteenthcentury is best represented by the first editionseries of Ordnance Survey maps, where wefind that only two of the five forts, Ayr andInverlochy, have survived in an intact andrecognisable form (Fig. 3). Although by thistime they are used for very different purposes,the key to their common survival may be thefact that both were in the possession of a



single landowner and employed for a singlepurpose. In the case of Inverlochy, the land usewas military; in the case of Ayr, the fort wasstill engaged as a brewery, with no leasing orsale of any of its elements to individuals whomight instigate further development. This didnot, however, prevent neighbouringdevelopments from reaching right up to thelimits of Ayr Citadel’s external defences, asmaps of the early 1800s clearly show us.In 1850, the entire site of Montgomeriestonwas sold to John Miller, a self-made man whostyled himself the ‘Baron of Montgomeries-ton.’ He erected a Gothic-style baronial pilewithin the site of the old fort, incorporatingthe ruined tower of the parish church into thestructure. In addition, he embarked onlimited rebuilding of the fort’s outer defenceson the seaward side, adding the pepper-potbartisan that now forms such a prominentfeature.³¹ The keen eye can, however, readilydistinguish this later reconstruction as thecoursed and snecked rubble used for Miller’snineteenth-century creation is far removedfrom the high quality work evident in thefort’s original ashlar masonry. It was duringhis ownership that development of the inte-rior began, but this was limited in its impact.Areas were progressively subdivided intohouse plots which invariably comprised largevillas set within extensive grounds, a movewhich helped to maintain the fort’s coher-ence as a distinct feature within the by-nowevolving townscape. In the long term thisprocess may also have resulted in the preser-vation of internal features such as the subter-ranean magazine shown on the first editionOrdnance Survey 25-inch map of 1855 andconfirmed as a surviving feature in 2010.³²Inverlochy also retained its coherence as asite until a relatively late date, no doubt onaccount of its continuing use as a militarystructure. As late as 1871, when the firstedition Ordnance Survey map was surveyed,

the fort is shown in its entirety but describedas ‘dismantled,’ though roofed buildings arestill present in the interior.³³ It shouldhowever be re-emphasised that the remainswhich survived were those of the Hanoverianstructure, not its Cromwellian predecessor.Two factors appear to have determinedwhether or not these sites survived well intothe present. The first is the degree offragmentation which followed progressivechanges of ownership: where the siteremained in single ownership, the footprinttended to remain well-preserved, but almostas soon as the site passed into multipleownership, development often took place atvarying rates with varying degrees ofdestruction occurring across the extent of thefort. A second factor was the demand for landwithin the town, particularly when requiredfor large infrastructure projects. Their coastallocation often made these forts attractive assites for docks or harbours, and theirextensive size and convenient location offeredopportunities for the construction of railinfrastructure. Inverlochy was sold intoprivate hands by 1864 and while the northernportion remained well preserved, having beenretained as a garden, by 1899 the southernportion was entirely destroyed following theconstruction of railway sidings and enginesheds.A similar fate befell Leith, though at a muchearlier date: after it was sold to the City ofEdinburgh the area was subject to rapiddevelopment, and by the 1850s the outline ofthe fort had already been broken followingthe building of docks along its northern edgeand a railway which encroached upon itsinterior, as the Ordnance Survey 25-inch mapof Leith clearly shows. Despite the fact thatpart of the site continued in use as a base fora local militia, few traces of the Cromwellianstructure remained, with only a handful ofstreet names and some vestigial traces of its



Fig. 3. Scotland’s Cromwellian Citadels, c. 1850-70



defences, including its principal gate (nowincorporated into a house) and fragments ofwalling, hinting at its former use.³⁴Ayr and Perth seem to have been less ravagedby the intensive levels of development evidentat Leith, Inverlochy and Inverness. This perhapsreflects the declining fortunes of both towns astrading centres in the second half of the nine-teenth century. Perth’s destruction in particularappears quite piecemeal: although it is difficultto discern the outline of its defences and bas-tions on the first edition Ordnance Survey mapof 1860, the interior remains largely undevel-oped. Here, encroachment came from small-scale development occurring outside the site,with the defences removed first, and the inte-rior left as a broad green space. This appears toreflect modest growth and a correspondinglymodest need to expand the town outwardsonto the site formerly occupied by the fort.Assessing levels of survival in the modernurban environmentThree and a half centuries have passed sincethe five Cromwellian forts were raised inScotland, and one and a half have elapsedsince their remains were surveyed anddescribed by the Ordnance Survey as they setabout compiling their first map series.Revision of these maps has continued on aregular basis, and this resource has now beenaugmented by a range of aerial and satelliteimagery which allows detailed study of theforts, or at least of the sites which they onceoccupied. Coupled with this is an increasingquantity of data amassed as a result ofdeveloper-funded archaeology: this allowsthe degree of survival of the sites themselves,or at the very least sediments of potentiallycontemporary date, to be assessed not justabove the ground, but below it.Of the five forts, Ayr, Inverlochy and morerecently Inverness have received the mostattention in terms of recent study and

discussion. Although Kennedy asserts thatInverness hosts the ‘last remaining fragments ofCromwellian fortifications anywhere inScotland’,³⁵ the situation is more complex.Viewed upon modern mapping and aerialimagery, Ayr’s outline can still be traced quiteclearly: its eastern, landward gateway survivesintact, although an apparent stretch ofupstanding defensive wall with bartisan towerowes its origins to the work of the self-styled‘Baron of Montgomerieston.’ More recentdiscoveries at Ayr include a surviving stretch ofthe original wall at the north-west corner, re-discovered by staff working for RathmellArchaeology: this fragment of masonry hadoriginally been spotted by four students of AyrAcademy,³⁶ and its Cromwellian credentials canbe confirmed both by its marked batter and bythe fine ashlar masonry which matches thesurviving gateway perfectly. Developer-fundedwork has further added to our understanding: ithas revealed that levels of survival are poor inthe south-east quadrant,³⁷ with only faint tracesof the moat and a possible robbed-out wallnoted, but that the situation is better in thenorth-east, where traces of the wall base havebeen uncovered on two occasions.³⁸ Recentwork undertaken in the northern portion of theouter defences by Rathmell Archaeology has alsorevealed the footings of a wall which had oncerun laterally across the base of the north ditch.³⁹

Inverlochy has also been subject to moredetailed investigation in recent years, througha programme of works undertaken as part of acommunity archaeology project.⁴⁰ Throughoutthe course of this project, a detailed history ofthe fort’s development was compiled, and thepotential for survival of associated sedimentstested in various locations. The survivingfragments of the north and west wallsoverlooking the waterfront are of coursederived from the later Hanoverian structure,and it is evident that the construction of therailway goods yard over much of the interior



has largely destroyed any earlier sediments.Trenching outside the limits of the fortsuggested, however, that there was apotential for midden deposits to survive,which, while not informing upon the structuralelements, could potentially shed light uponthe lives of its occupants.

It might be assumed that the remaining fortsat Leith, Perth and Inverness would be lesswell-preserved, judging by the progressiveerosion of their defences. Leith, however,shows some promise, as like Ayr, it stillretains a small upstanding portion of itsCromwellian structure. This is the CitadelArch, located at Dock Street and comprisinga vaulted pend with arched gateway, nowincorporated into a house. The survival ofsub-surface features has however been dem-onstrated in recent years. Trial trenching,undertaken elsewhere on the site in 2002,proved promising in terms of the potentialquality and quantity of sub-surface evidencesurviving. A first phase of works revealed theremains of post-medieval buildings consist-ent with the fort’s internal structures, whilea second revealed the line of the defensiveditch, which survived to a depth of 3.8mbelow the natural level of the subsoil andwhich was lined with sandstone ashlar.⁴¹At Inverness, it is clear from early twentieth-century sources that considerable remainscould still be seen in the early 1920s,⁴² but by1960, only the ‘northwest and northeast bas-tions, with an intervening stretch of rampart’were still visible.⁴³ Following the constructionof an oil storage and distribution depot afterthis date, only the north-west bastion and astretch of rampart were still visible in 2005,⁴⁴but further information regarding the survivalof sub-surface deposits is limited.By the mid-nineteenth century, Perth appearsto have been the least well-preserved of thefive, comprising an area of open space and

lacking any kind of definition in the townscape.The lack of development in the interior hasmeant, however, that it has fared better thanmany of its counterparts. Investigationscarried out by the Scottish Urban Archaeolog-ical Trust (SUAT) during the 1990s found thefoundations of internal structures surviving,⁴⁵with a later evaluation carried out in 1997revealing the inner revetment wall of the eastditch and the inner revetment wall of thesouth ditch . This was followed by excavationsin the south-west area of the fort which foundthat a major portion of the bastion’s revet-ment wall remained, with the return to thenorth-south curtain wall surviving in associa-tion. Enough of the masonry survived, too, toidentify three different episodes ofconstruction,⁴⁶ although the excavatorsargued that in this instance it probablyreflected the work of three different workgangs rather than three different phases ofconstruction.⁴⁷

ConclusionScotland’s Cromwellian forts sprang from acommon source, and in some respects theyshare a common narrative. Some degree ofdifference was always evident, with the fort ofInverlochy representing a more temporaryearth-and-timber structure and its counterpartsat Ayr, Inverness, Leith and Perth composed ofmuch more durable and imposing ashlarmasonry. And yet it was Inverlochy that argua-bly endured longest in its original role: builtquickly with practical military concerns upper-most in mind, it was rebuilt as a permanentstructure only a few decades after the Restora-tion of 1660 which saw its fellow bastion fortsdismantled. Only Leith shared its fate, continu-ing in use in a much reduced form as a barracksuntil the mid-nineteenth century. Most of theforts did not retain their military function after1660. Instead, they were decommissioned, butthe extent of the ensuing destruction at this



time is uncertain. In some cases, this may haveresulted primarily in the demolition of internalstructures, but in others the defences may havebeen deliberately slighted with high qualitybuilding stone removed and ditches infilled.Archaeology provides a means of testing thepossible extent of such destruction.Most of the forts were gifted by Charles II tothose who had served him well in theCommonwealth period. The fort at Perth wasgifted to the town, as its inhabitants had beensupporters of the Royalist cause. The fate ofthe fort at Inverness is less clear: the land onwhich it stood may originally have been feuedby the town and following its decommissionthere appears to have been some doubtregarding its ownership. The forts at Leith andAyr were both gifted to loyal members of thenobility – to the Earl of Lauderdale and theEarl of Eglinton respectively – and this iswhere their paths diverge. Leith was sold ata healthy profit to the City of Edinburgh verysoon after its acquisition, while Ayr wasretained and made into a site for business andenterprise which, unfortunately for Eglinton,never really took off.

Their subsequent fates are bound up in howthe original landholdings were dispersed: inthe case of Ayr the entire site retains echoesof its original character surprisingly well,while, at Leith, early sale resulted in earlierfragmentation and varying levels ofdestruction across its extent. In the long term,this has meant that of the five forts, Ayr –which remained in the hands of a singleowner until late into the nineteenth century– retains more elements of its originaldefences and even some isolated elements ofinternal structures. The interior of Perthremains well preserved, as its later historymeant it was never built upon, but no tracesnow survive of its defences. Inverlochy wasall but obliterated by the later fort built uponthe same site, but like Leith and Inverness was

also subject to destruction through harbourand railway construction. On all five sites,isolated Cromwellian (or in the case ofInverlochy, successor) fragments survive, butthese do little to convey the imposinggrandeur of the original structures. Onlythrough historic mapping, and to a limitedextent from aerial imagery, do we gain a realimpression of how dramatic these structuresmight have appeared to their localcommunities during the short but highlyimpactful Commonwealth interregnum.Louise Turner, c/o Rathmell Archaeology Ltd., 8Ashgrove Workshops, Kilwinning, Ayrshire KA13 6PU.Email: [email protected]

Notes and references1. L Turner, ‘“No earth but a shattering sand”: Ayr asa garrison town 1652-7’ (Ayrshire Federation ofHistorical Societies/Ayrshire Archaeological andNatural History Society, forthcoming); see also above,‘Ayrshire Gazetteer’, no.32. A A Tait, ‘The Protectorate Citadels of Scotland’,Architectural History, volume 6 (1965), pages 9-19;see also, C H Firth, Scotland and the Protectorate(Scottish History Society, volume 31, Edinburgh,1899), pages xxxvi-l3. ‘Tessin, Hans Ewald [SSNE 6600]’, The Scotland,Scandinavia and Northern European BiographicalDatabase (SSNE), University of St. Andrews, 2004:https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/ssne/item.php?id=6600

4. Ordnance Survey Name Books, Inverness-shire1876-8, volume 33, page 28, National Records ofScotland (NRS), OS1/17/33/28, available at:https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnance-survey-name-books/inverness-shire-os-name-books-1876-1878/inverness-shire-mainland-volume-33/28

5. Ordnance Survey Name Books, Midlothian 1852-3,volume 83, page 12, NRS, OS1/11/83/12, available at:https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnance-survey-name-books/midlothian-os-name-books-1852-1853/midlothian-volume-83/12

6. See above, ‘Ayrshire Gazetteer’, no. 1.7. These have included: J H Pagan, Annals of Ayr inthe Olden Time 1560-1692 (Ayr, 1897);J Strawhorn, The History of Ayr: Royal Burgh andCounty Town (Edinburgh, 1968 and 1989); H Caldwell,H Fraser & L Lyall, ‘Cromwell’s Citadel in Ayr’, Ayrshire



Archaeological and Natural History Collections, 2ndseries, volume 8 (1969), pages 153-4; and T Barclay& E J Graham, The Early Transatlantic Trade of Ayr1640-1750 (Ayrshire Archæological & Natural HistorySociety, monograph 30 (2005))8. Pagan, op. cit., page 519. Ibid.10. Barclay & Graham, op. cit., page 1711. W A Dodd, ‘Ayr: a study of urban growth’, AyrshireArchaeological & Natural History Collections, 2ⁿdseries, volume 10 (1972), pages 301-79 at 31612. Tait, op. cit., page 913. Ibid., page 1114. Pagan, op. cit., page 51; according to NewStatistical Account of Scotland, volume 5, County ofAyrshire (1845), pages 42-4 at 44, available athttps://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk, Cromwell’s refer-ence was to silver15. Tait, op. cit., page 1116. A. Kennedy, ‘Cromwell’s Highland Stronghold:the Sconce of Inverness’, Scottish Local History, 106(Summer 2020), pages 3-717. T Pollard & O Lelong, Fort William and InverlochyArchaeological Project (Historic Conflict in theHighlands): Data Structure Report (GUARDArchaeology, Project 2348, 2007)18. Ibid., page 10.19. S Cruden, The Scottish Castle (Edinburgh, 1960),pages 229-3020. Ordnance Survey Name Books, Midlothian 1852-3, volume 83, page 24, NRS, OS1/11/83/24, availableonline at:https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnance-survey-name-books/midlothian-os-name-books-1852-1853/midlothian-volume-83/24

21. National Library of Scotland, Ordnance Surveymap (hereafter NLS, OS map), 6 inch to1 mile,Edinburghshire sheet II, first edition, surveyed 1852,published 1853, available at: https://www.maps.nls.uk

22. Ordnance Survey Name Books, Midlothian 1852-3, volume 83, page 24, loc. cit.23. Kennedy, op. cit. Page 5.24. Ordnance Survey Name Books, Perthshire 1859-62, volume 67, pages 23-5, NRS, OS1/25/67/23,available online at:https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnance-survey-name-books/perthshire-os-name-books-1859-1862/perthshire-volume-67/24

25. Kennedy, op. cit, page 5.

26. Ibid., page 6.27. Ordnance Survey Name Books, Midlothian 1852-3, volume 83, page 24, loc. cit28. Ibid.29. A F McJannet, Royal Burgh of Irvine (Glasgow,1938), page 18630. Caldwell et al., op.cit., page 15331. Ibid., page 154; Strawhorn, op. cit., page 18132. Tom Barclay pers. comm.33. NLS, OS map, 6 inch to 1 mile, Inverness-shiresheet CL, first edition surveyed 1871, published 1876,available at https://www.maps.nls.uk

34. Ordnance Survey Name Books, Midlothian 1852-3, volume 83, pages 11-13, 20, NRS, OS1/11/83/11-13,20, available online at:https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnance-survey-name-books/midlothian-os-name-books-1852-1853/midlothian-volume-83/11

35. Kennedy, op. cit page 6.36. Caldwell et al., op.cit., page 15337. H. James, Citadel Place, Ayr. Archaeological Evalua-tion: Preliminary Report (GUARD Archaeology, 2004); DSneddon, Citadel Place, Ayr, Archaeological Evaluation:Data Structure Report (GUARD Archaeology, 2007)38. P. Duffy, 4 Montgomerie Terrace, Ayr (GUARDArchaeology, Project 1004, 2001); A K Maule, ‘AyrCitadel, South Ayrshire (Ayr parish), watching brief.’Discovery & Excavation in Scotland, 2ⁿd series,volume 2 (2001) page 8739. Thomas Rees, pers. comm.40. Pollard & Lelong, op. cit., page 43-441. G. Brown & S. Stronach, ‘Dock Street, Leith, Cityof Edinburgh (City parish of Edinburgh), CromwellianCitadel’, Discovery & Excavation in Scotland, 2ndseries, volume 3 (2002), page 4842. G. Eyre Todd, Famous Scottish Burghs: theirRomantic Story (London, 1923), page 20243. J Wood, ‘Cromwell’s Fort, Inverness, Highland (Inver-ness & Bona parish), Watching Brief’, Discovery & Exca-vation in Scotland, 2ⁿd series, vol. 6 (2005), page 8244. Ibid.45. R. Cachart, ‘Princes Street/Marshall Place, Perth(Perth parish), Cromwellian Citadel’ Discovery &Excavation in Scotland 1991, page 7246. S. Stronach, S 1997 ‘Perth Floods PreventionScheme (Perth, Tibbermore parishes.’) Discovery &Excavation in Scotland 1997, pages 64-547. Cachart , op. cit.


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Ayr Citadel in Context: the decline and fall of Scotland’s ... Journal 2020-21REV4-CALIBRI-… · pentagonal or hexagonal on plan with projecting bastions at the angles, as this