GeoGraph - photograph every grid square

· Norman Castle

· Urie

· Bass

· River

NJ7820 : Motte and Baillie, Inverurie Martyn's photo encapsulates all the features mentioned below.

McConnochie in Donside (1900) wrote: Before 1176 the Castle of Inverurie was on The Bass, and was the principal seat of the royal Earldom of the Garioch. The Bass is a truncated cone of about forty feet in height with sides now so smooth that one can almost understand why it was long regarded as artificial, and that it covered the remains of "the plague" or something equally mysterious. But The Bass is alluvial, resting on a bed of clay, and owes its existence solely to the two streams which almost surround it, but which at one time flowed at a much higher level. Adjoining The Bass on the east is a lower mound, oblong in form, known as the Little Bass. When the churchyard was enlarged in 1883 both mounds were included within the fence, and now form a picturesque feature of the ancient burial ground.