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Note
Date 17 April 2015 - 19 May 2016
Event ID 1044341
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044341
This large enclosure occupies the summit of Durn Hill, which is a prominent rounded hill above Portsoy. Its perimeter comprises three roughly concentric lines, the inner and outer of which are probably the remains of palisade trenches, while the third lying between them comprises a low scarp for most of its circuit, accompanied over a distance of about 130m on the SW quarter by an external ditch with a counterscarp bank; the ditch, which is in the order of 3m in breadth by 0.9m in depth, is rough and irregular with several undug causeways that may reflect the division of labour between separate work gangs. Apparently the remains of an unfinished rampart, the larger stones lie along the inner lip of the ditch, and a gap at the SW angle is probably an original entrance. The palisade trenches are between 0.6m and 0.9m in breadth and up to 0.3m in depth, the inner broken by gaps on the NE and behind the entrance through the unfinished rampart on the SW. While there are several small gaps in the line of the outer on the E and SE, only a gap on the SW, where the outer line diverges outwards from the others is certainly the remains of an entrance. The only features visible within the interior are two low, stony ring-banks, one immediately to the rear of the northern end of the unfinished rampart and ditch, and the other further into the interior in the SW quadrant.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 19 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2958
