Droughdool Mote

Droughdool Mote stands on a low rise in the parish of Old Luce, Wigtownshire, within Dumfries and Galloway. The oval mound measures about sixty metres by fifty metres at its base and rises ten metres above the surrounding ground. It sits four hundred metres south of the late Neolithic palisaded enclosure at Dunragit. The mound’s stepped sides were built on top of an old sand dune. Excavations between 1999 and 2002 found a round cairn at the summit, similar to the nearby Mid Gleniron A site. Archaeologists once thought the mound was a medieval castle mound, but its shape and position differ from other local mottes. Luminescence dating in 2002 showed the site is prehistoric, linked to the Dunragit complex of monuments. Marilyn Brown identified the wider Dunragit complex from aerial photographs in 1992. The Droughdool Mote aligns with the entrance to the middle of three concentric rings at Dunragit. Other Neolithic mounds such as Silbury Hill and Hatfield Barrow share this pattern. Visitors reach the mound along a farm track through gently rolling farmland. The mound itself has no ditch, but during the Neolithic high tides flooded the low ground between it and Dunragit. This basin, now called Whitecrook, would have been water at high tide. Julian Thomas suggests the water crossing formed part of a symbolic journey into the enclosure. The site remains a scheduled monument, protected for future study.