Field Visit

Date 21 May 1996

Event ID 1039000

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1039000

The fort that crowns the Mither Tap o’ Bennachie is defended by several massive stone walls now largely reduced to vast screes of rubble. The innermost wall defends the boss of bare granite that forms the distinctive summit of the hill and survives only as two steep screes of rubble on the NE and SE, the latter with a stretch of outer facing stones on a ledge immediately above. Below this on the S and E, there is a second wall and this too is represented by a long scree of rubble that falls more or less to the foot of the boss. Together these two walls enclose little measurable space for occupation and may have formed an inner citadel.

Encircling the boss beyond these, there are the remains of an impressive stone wall some 8m thick much of which has collapsed downslope forming a massive skirt of rubble around the hill. At several places in the rubble, substantial stretches of outer face can still be seen, the most continuous extending south from the stone-lined entrance on the ENE. This entrance passage climbs into the interior and at least some of the stones facing the inner end of the passage may be original, turning either side to form a kerbed plinth at the foot of the inner face of the wall. Here, the inner face of the wall has been raised in a series of steps or tiers, the lower standing nine courses high and the upper five course high, and presumably culminated in a parapet at least one tier above the level of the surviving masonry. The sheer scale of this wall indicates that at some stage it was the principal line of defence, spanning the spine of rock outcrop on the SW and abutting either side of the vertical face of the boss on the N. This wall enclosed an oval area measuring about 120m from NNE to SSW by 70m transversely, though again little of the space provided for accommodation.

This massive wall evidently replaced an earlier defence lying immediately inside its circuit though its precise course remains uncertain. Where best preserved on the S, it survives as an artificial terrace faced with large blocks standing to a height 1.2m and retaining a possible entrance on the SSE. To the NE, this terrace tails off into a low scarp before petering out, but to the W it appears to turn, as if to cut over the spine of outcrop descending from the summit, disappearing in a scatter of large boulders strewn across the slope. This corresponds to the position of a slight break in slope to the W of the spine, but on this side of the fort there is also a heather-grown stony bank behind the S end of the outer wall; it too has traces of an entrance matched by a gap in the outer wall. Internally, this wall enclosed an oval area measuring about 95m from NE to SW by 70m transversely.

Without excavation, the sequence and arrangement of these defences cannot be fully understood.

Visited by RCAHMS (ARG, KM) 21 May 1996.