Note
Date 19 February 2015 - 18 May 2016
Event ID 1044186
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044186
This fort occupies a relatively low but steep sided ridge in the moorland to the W of Ulbster, which rises in a series of such ridges to the larger bulk of Warehouse Hill. Oval on plan, it measures about 180m from NNE to SSW by 55m transversely (0.85ha) within a single stone wall generally some 2.25m thick. Long stretches of the outer face are visible, in one place standing up to 1m in high in six courses. There are entrances on the SSW and NNE, the former 3.3m wide and lined with slabs set on edge, and the latter framed by a remarkable setting of orthostats. Though only three remain, there were evidently four set in pairs to mark the inner and outer ends of the passage through the wall, which at this point swells to a thickness of 4.5m; standing at right-angles to the passage, these massive stones are each about 1.6m high. Other features of the wall noted in 1983 by Roger Mercer include a series of narrow built channels set transversely through the body of the wall (1985, 110-12, figs 69-70), though these have not been noted by other investigators; he also followed Alexander Curle (RCAHMS 1911, 165, no.528) in suggesting that a rectangular structure let into the wall on the E was possibly the remains of a blocked entrance, and interpretation not shared by other investigators, most recently of RCAHMS, who regard this as a later insertion. The peat covered interior is heather-grown, but two collections of stones that may be the remains of small cairns can be seen at the NNE end, where there is also evidence of shallow surface quarrying, while a stony bank defines a small enclosure within the SSW end. In addition to the structure already noted on the E, another small pen has been built against the wall on this side, and a third outside the circuit on the SSW.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2830
