498. Earthwork, Bankier (Site).
This structure, stated by Gordon to have occupied the top of a hill "opposite to Castlecarey",² was considered by the parish minister of Kilsyth in 1796 to have been the most important monument of its kind in the vicinity, on account both of its position and of its strength.³ Gordon's description and illustration⁴ indicate that the main defence was a rampart of earth and stone and not a stone wall; and this is further substantiated by the report that trees were then planted upon it. The rampart measured about 20 ft. in height and about 120 ft. in diameter, and was surrounded by a ditch about 24 ft. in width. The interior was paved with flat stones, and the entrance was on the E. Cottages built in the interior had increased the damage done to the remains by the trees on the rampart, but Gordon's account describes a structure which corresponds very closely to a type of mediaeval earthwork exemplified, for instance, by that at Scraesburgh, in Roxburghshire.⁵

Gordon does not locate the earthwork precisely, but Roy⁶ marks "Bankier Castle" a few hundred yards S. of "Hollin Buss" (Hollandbush). This corresponds with the place marked on the 0.5. map as Hillhead, 280 yds. SE. of Bankier House, where there is an isolated round- topped hill upon which, until recently, there was a group of cottages and a circular enclosure-wall. These have now given way to part of a housing estate, and it has been reported that some sherds of 16th-century pottery were found when excavations for this were proceeding. It is almost certain that this was the site of the earthwork.

The unknown author whose note is preserved by Macfarlane⁷ concludes his list with a structure "over against Castle Carry at Dunglass". No place bearing this name has been noted in the lands N. of Castle Cary, and h might have been thought that the name Dunglass was applied to the structure at Bankier; but Pont includes in hk inventory⁸ two names, "Bankyr" and "Dunbass", and despite the difference in spelling between "Dunglass" and "Dunbass", it may be supposed that both referred to one and the same structure and that therefore Bankier was distinct from this. Sibbald shows "Banker" at this place.⁹

784790 NS 77 NE (unnoted) '9 June 1954

1 OPE/SCOT/UK 256 Part III, 5236-7.
2 Itin. Septent., 22.
3 Stat. Acct., xviii (1796), 295 fl.
4 Lot. cit, and pl. iii, 2.
5 Inventory of Roxburghshire, No.466.
6 Military Antiquities,,pl. xxxv.
7 Geogr. Collections, iii, 125.
8  Ibid., ii, 369.
9  Sibbald, Historical Inquiries, map facing p.3.
10 CPE/SCOT/UK 265A, 5121-2.
11 106G/SCOT/UK 93, 4056-7.