Grizzlefield, East Rings

134. Fort, Grizzlefield ‘East Rings’.

The remains of this fort (fig. 74 [DP 229123]) lie some 300 yards to the east of the last on the east end of the same ridge, and at an elevation of some 600 feet over sea-level. It has been oval in form, measuring interiorly some 590 feet by 369 feet and surrounded by a single rampart of earth with a trench to the outside, both now much effaced.

See Ber. Nat. Club, 1882-84, p, 309.

RCAHMS 1915, visited May 1911.

O.S.M , Ber., xxvi. SE. (unnoted).

An aerial transcription was produced from oblique aerial photographs. Information from Historic Environment Scotland (BM) 31 March 2017.

This fort is situated on the E end of a low ridge and is the eastern of two no more than 250m apart that stood to the ENE of Grizzelfield (see Atlas No.4006). First noted on the Map of the County of Berwick surveyed by Andrew and Mostyn Armstrong in 1771, it was ploughed down in the first half of the 19th century, but cropmarks have revealed that the defences comprise two circuits of ditches, and the remains of the rampart accompanying the outer was still visible when James Hewat Craw drew up a plan in 1911 (RCAHMS 1915, 76, no.134, fig 74). The interior is oval, measuring about 130m from E to W by 90m transversely (0.9ha) within the inner ditch, and allowing for the presence of an internal rampart it would have enclosed about 0.78ha. At 6m in average breadth, however, the outer ditch is rather broader than the inner, and while they are roughly concentric, generally lying some 5m to 10m apart, there is no particular reason to assume that they represent a contemporary scheme of defence. Indeed, as at nearby West Morriston (Atlas No.4004), where likewise traces of the outer rampart survived into the early 20th century but without any hint of the inner circuit, the outer may well represent a larger free-standing enclosure in its own right, measuring up to 170m from E to W by 100m transversely (1.3ha). If this is the case, the dogleg outwards on the E, which sharply increases the gap between the two circuits to 20m at this end, was a simple device to increase the size of the interior. Alternatively it was to elaborate the entrance here, complicating the approach to the two causeways that cross the inner ditch some 20m apart; the southern of these causeways, and the one more directly opposed to the gap in the outer ditch, appears to have been narrowed with palisade trenches springing from the terminals of the ditch to either side. No such elaboration occurs at the W entrance, where there is a very slight stagger in the terminals of the outer ditch and apparently a gap 20m wide in the inner, but at the third entrance, on the S, not only are the outer ditch terminals slightly staggered, but a dark mark extending across both lines of defence suggests the presence of a worn entrance way approaching obliquely to expose the visitor's right side. Within the interior three or four maculae are visible in the SE quarter, one of which is clearly the remains of a timber round-house. The only other features are a right-angled length of ditch which appears to have formed an enclosure with the inner ditch on the N side, and another arc of ditch lying adjacent immediately to the E; their relationship to the inner ditch is uncertain.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 04 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC4005

Visibility: This was the site of an archaeological monument, which may no longer be visible.

Information from Scottish Borders Council