Excavations at Rattray, Aberdeenshire. A Scottish Deserted Burgh

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“…Even in the 13th and 14th century there would probably have been a small settlement adjacent to, but outside, the ditched area. Support for such a hypothesis is given by the evidence for a settlement beside the Moray bishop's palace at Spynie (Lewis & Pringle 2002, 11-12) or indeed the 'village' beside the secular manor at Rattray (Murray & Murray 1993). The inhabitants of the Rattray settlement included specialist craftsmen such as blacksmiths and potters and at Spynie there appear to have been fishermen living in the adjacent settlement.…”

“…However, it should be stressed that such ovens could also have been used for brewing barley into ale and for preserving fish and meat by smoking, as well as for non-culinary activities such as dyeing cloth. Both the larger circular ovens (42 and 51) and the smaller keyhole-shaped oven (60) are types that can be seen among the 13th-and 14th-century ovens on the manor site at Rattray (Murray & Murray 1993, fig. 8) and similar structures are relatively frequent on urban medieval sites.…”

“…In size, at 75-80m in diameter, it was a reasonably large manorial site, comparing with the 60-70m of the Comyn manor at Rattray (Murray & Murray 1993) and larger than many mottes in the area (RCAHMS 2007, 152-3). The size may, however, simply reflect the physical possibilities of the site and the needs of its rural and agricultural economy rather than its episcopal status: for instance by comparison, the 13thcentury bishop's palace in the more restricted urban context of Cathedral Square in Glasgow only appears to have been c 28m in diameter (Clarke & Thomson 1987).…”

“…The documentary evidence indicates that from the 12th century Old Rayne was part of the lands of the bishop of Aberdeen and that from at least the 15th century it was an administrative centre for some of those lands. As such it must be evaluated as a manorial centre comparable to contemporary secular sites such as Rattray, Aberdeenshire (Murray & Murray 1993). However, it was also one of the occasional residences of the bishop and must have been able to house him and his household in some comfort.…”

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“…Since Dixon's (2003) review of Medieval rural settlement in lowland Scotland, only the sites of Eldbotle, East Lothian (Morrison et al 2008;Hindmarch & Oram 2012) and Gogar, Edinburgh (Morrison et al 2009) have been added. At Springwood Park (Dixon 1998), Rattray (Murray & Murray 1993) and Eldbotle, domestic buildings and associated byres were excavated, revealing a very similar history of post-built structures replaced by rectangular, stone-founded buildings, some of which were cruck-framed. This change to stone-founded buildings occurred in the mid-13th-14th centuries so we might anticipate that the missing settlement at Newbridge resembled those revealed at Springwood Park, Rattray and Eldbotle.…”