Field Visit
Date 15 December 1998
Event ID 1011216
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1011216
A flight of at least twenty cultivation terraces extends across the eastern slopes of Arthur's Seat, below the ramparts of the fort on Crow Hill (NT27SE 93) and is plotted at 1:5,550 on an archaeological map of Holyrood Park (RCAHMS 1999). The terraces are most impressive on the steeper ground to the N, where they are also at their narrowest, measuring between 7.5m and 9m in breadth and up to 1.8m in height. As they descend the slope, the terraces broaden and become less well-defined, but they can still be traced over a distance of 370m. To the SE, the lower terraces are overlain by a plot of rig-and-furrow cultivation (NT27SE 3968), while the N ends of the uppermost terraces are overlain by the banks of two rectilinear enclosures (NT27SE 3939). No trace was found of the World War 1 trench referred to by Stevenson, and the stone revetments, first described by Chambers, appear to be little more than rough lines of cleared stones and boulders. The terraces appear to be the cumulative result of successive seasons of ploughing along a slope, and those recorded under NT27SE 135 are a continuation of the lower terraces to the N.
Visited by RCAHMS (ARG), 15 December 1998.
NMRS, MS/726/96 (47, no. 27); RCAHMS 1999.
