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Publication Account

Date 1985

Event ID 1016235

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016235

In the late 18th century this site was called 'Wooden's (Woden's or Odin's) Hall or Castle". An alternative folk etymology, "Jotun (giant's) Hall", reputedly recalls Red Etin of tale and ballad. It is a multi-period site set above a steep slope over 60 m down to the Whiteadder Water, but otherwise difficult to defend. The earliest structure is an oval fort some 134m by 73m, enclosed by a double rampart and ditches. (There is a hillfort on Cockburn Law, just behind: NT 765597.)

Most remarkable, however, is the broch, a well-preserved outlier of an essentially northern Scottish type of fortified building, which lies in the north-west corner of the earlier fort. Either side of the 4.9m long entrance passage is a guard chamber set in the 5m and more thick walls, and the courtyard has an overall diameter of some 22m. South of the entrance an opening gives access within the walls to a short stair and passage: to the left a small chamber, to the right a further stair to the top of the wall. Elsewhere there are two further intramural cavities, each with a short passage opening either end on to a small compartment and curving to follow the line of the main wall. The small rectangular chamber just to the north and outside the entrance passage is, however, a secondary feature.

A roughly rectangular enclosure surrounds the broch, but this may relate rather to the last phase of occupation-an open unfortified settlement consisting of circular hut foundations and stretches of walling in the eastern half of the hillfort. In the upper angle of the surrounding field, about 90m to the south-east, further small circular and rectangular enclosures set mainly in a line, abutting, suggest further habitation with cultivation carned close on all sides.

The fort can probably be dated to the last years BC or early AD, prior to the arnval of the Romans; the open settlement was maybe an undefended village established in the later 2nd century AD under the 'pax Romana'. As to the broch, it seems to be the only one within the terntory of the Votadini, who were supposedly at peace with the Romans. Perhaps it was built between the two Roman occupations of southern Scotland, but by whom? Were lowland brochs built by professional broch builders commissioned by leading lowland families as protection against the Romans?

Information from 'Exploring Scotland's Heritage: Lothian and Borders', (1985).

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