Note
Date 30 March 2015 - 30 May 2017
Event ID 1044323
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044323
This fort is situated on Burg Head, the large promontory jutting out into the Moray Firth from the southern shore, which has given its name to the planned village that now extends up its spine. Whereas the earlier village is shown on a plan drawn up by General William Roy in the 18th century outside the defences, the construction of the new village and its harbour at the beginning of the 19th century led to the extensive demolition of the ramparts. As a result, Roy's plan published in 1793 remains the best guide to the disposition of the defences, which comprise three main elements: an enclosure on the summit of the promontory; an annexe apparently springing from the summit enclosure to take in the lower terrace immediately above the shore on the NNE; and a belt of three ramparts probably with external ditches cutting across the neck of the promontory on the ESE. The summit enclosure measured at least 155m from ESE to WNW by 60m transversely (0.8ha) within a massive timber-laced wall, though its heavily disturbed remains only survive in the sector overlooking the annexe on the NNE, the ESE end having been levelled for the construction of the upper W corner of the village, and the whole of the southern flank demolished to make way for the new harbour in 1808-9; the entrance was in the middle of the ESE end. The N corner of the village likewise overlies the ESE end of the annexe, which extended beyond the ESE end of the summit enclosure and measured at least 190m in internal length, tapering westward from a maximum breadth of 70m (1.1ha). Its N wall survives as a massive mound of quarried rubble, but the W end has been entirely removed. The entrance was in the ESE end, which appears to have taken in the entrance to the well-known well or cistern. In plan, the sinuous course of the outer belt of defences appears to mimic the ESE end of the summit enclosure and the annexe, cutting off an area on the promontory measuring perhaps as much as 255m in length by 190m in breadth (3.2ha). All three were pierced by an entrance that mounted the slope to the NNE of the burial ground, in which faint traces of these ramparts can still be detected; notably the outermost rampart and ditch are the largest on Roy's drawn profile taken towards the S end above the harbour, possibly indicating that these defences represent several periods of construction. The way the outer defences seem to follow the line of the summit and annexe defences might indicate that they were an addition, but they may equally be earlier, responding to the underlying topography, now masked by the village, and indeed the position of the well. The differences in size of the outer ramparts noted by Roy may in any case indicate that the outermost was once a free-standing defence in its own right enclosing an area of about 4.3ha.
Since the construction of the harbour and the new village, which saw the discovery of numerous carved stones, many of them bearing incised Pictish depictions of bulls, six of which survive, but also including fragments of early medieval cross-slabs (see RCAHMS Canmore ID 16190), there have been repeated archaeological interventions, with excavations carried out in 1861 (Macdonald 1862), 1890-2 (Young 1891; 1893), 1966 (Small 1966; 1969), 2002 (Johnson 2002) and 2003 (Ralston 2004) and currently by G Noble. Finds at various times have included a Late Bronze Age spearhead (Proc Soc Antiq Scot 24, 379), a Roman melon bead, several late Roman coins and an Anglo-Saxon mount dating from about the 9th century. The sections through the walls revealed clear evidence of timber-lacing in some places, though not everywhere, and the use of iron spikes in the frame; some of the timberwork appears to have been incorporated horizontally in the wall faces.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 30 May 2017. Atlas of Hillforts SC2925
