Moffat.
Duffus.
Liddesdale.
Fig. 44.—Scottish Motte-Castles.
Cumyn, or Comyn.—The first of this family came to Scotland as the chancellor of David I.[1020] First seated at Linton Roderick, in Roxburghshire, where there is a rising ground, surrounded formerly by a foss, the site of the original castle; (G.) a description which seems to suggest a motte. William the Lion gave the Cumyns Kirkintilloch in Dumbarton, and we afterwards find them at Dalswinton in Dumfriesshire, and Troqueer in Kirkcudbright. At Kirkintilloch the O.M. shows a square mount concentrically placed in a square enceinte. The enclosure was apparently one of the forts on the wall of Agricola, but the writer on Kirkintilloch in the N. S. A. suspected that it had been transformed into a castle by the Cumyns. At Dalswinton the O.M. shows a motte, and calls it the “site of Cumyn’s Castle.” At Troqueer, “directly opposite the spot on the other side the river where Cumyn’s Castle formerly stood is a mote of circular form and considerable height.” (N. S. A.) The Cumyn who held Kirkintilloch in 1201, was made Earl of Buchan, and held the vast district of Badenoch, or the great valley of the Spey. The N. S. A. gives many descriptions of remains in this region which are suggestive of motte-castles; we can only name the most striking: Ruthven, “a castle reared by the Comyns on a green conical mound on the S. bank of the Spey, thought to be partly artificial,” now occupied by ruined barracks; Dunmullie, in the parish of Duthill, where “there can be traced vestiges of a motte surrounded by a ditch, on which, according to tradition, stood the castle of the early lords”; Crimond, where Cumyn had a castle, and where there is a small round hill called Castle Hill; and Ellon, where the Earl of Buchan had his head court, on a small hill which has now disappeared, but which was anciently known as the moot-hill of Ellon. Saisin of the earldom was given on this hill in 1476. (N. S. A.)
Cunningham.—Warnebald, who came from the north of England, was a follower of the Norman, Hugh de Morville, who gave him the lands of Cunningham, in Ayrshire, from which the family name was taken. In the parish of Kilmaurs, which is in the district of Cunningham, there is a “mote,” which may have been the castle of Warnebald; at any rate the original manor place of Cunningham was in this parish. It is of course possible that this motte may have been originally a De Morville castle.
Douglas.—Name territorial; progenitor was a Fleming, who received lands on the Douglas water, in Lanark, in the middle of the 12th century. In the park of Douglas, to the east of the modern castle, is a mound called Boncastle, but we are unable to state certainly that it is a motte. Lag Castle, in the parish of Dunscore, “has a moat or court hill a little to the east.” (N. S. A.: shown in Grose’s picture.) It must have been originally Douglas land, as in 1408 it was held by an armour-bearer of Douglas.
Durand.—Clearly a Norman name, corrupted into Durham. The family were seated at Kirkpatrick Durham in the 13th century. There is or was a motte at Kirkpatrick.[1021]