Note

Date 26 March 2015 - 31 May 2016

Event ID 1044290

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044290

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland

This small fortification is situated on the top of an almost conical morainic feature that forms a steep-sided hillock high up on the E flank of Creagan Dearg. The E flank is particularly steep, where it has been eroded by the gully of Allt a' Chaoruinn. Rather than being defended by stone walls or earthen banks, the perimeter here comprises two shallow grooves, which appear to be the surface remain of palisade trenches. The inner measures up to 1.5m in breadth and is set a short distance within the lip of the roughly level summit to form an oval enclosure measuring internally about 38m from NE to SW by 24m transversely (0.07ha). The outer trench lies up to 8.5m outside the inner and, except where it has been eroded by the burn on the E, forms a well defined terrace set between 1m and 2.5m below the lip of the summit. Both trenches are pierced by an entrance on the SW, and a crescent-shaped terrace outside its mouth possibly indicates there was yet another line of timberwork here forming an outer hornwork. The only clearly defined feature in the interior is a small circular enclosure overlying the inner palisade trench on the S; it is probably of relatively recent date.

For palisade trenches to remain visible on the surface of the morainic deposits suggests that the timbers they held were very substantial; this is notably so for the outer, which with its position down the slope mimics the structure of stone ramparts and should perhaps be reconstructed as a massive timber rampart with a raised fighting platform at the level of the natural summit of the hillock.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 31 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2921