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Date 21 April 2015 - 31 August 2016

Event ID 1044346

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044346

This fort is situated on the summit of Barmekin Hill, but though the hill is a commanding topographical feature, the heather-clad defences remain inconspicuous features from the surrounding landscape. The defences comprise two main elements: an outer belt of four close-set ramparts with intervening quarry ditches; and an inner wall. A second wall, which overlies the innermost of the outer belt of defences is almost certainly a plantation wall built with stones robbed from the inner wall in the 18th century (Stat Acct, xiii, 1794, 620-1n). The inner wall, which is accompanied by a shallow internal quarry scoop, encloses a slightly oval area measuring about 112m from N to S by 105m transversely (0.95ha) and is pierced by five entrances corresponding to gaps in the outer belt of defences; those on the N, S and W are choked with rubble, though there is no evidence that this is the result of deliberate blocking, while the entrance on the E carries a well worn modern track from which stones appear to have been cleared to form prominent flanking banks running up through the defences. The tracks leading up from the other entrance are also flanked by banks, but these are much lower and more ephemeral features. The outer belt is about 20m deep and lies some 10m outside the wall, comprising four ramparts along which occasional facing-stones can be seen all round the circuit, separated by irregular quarry ditches; an internal quarry can also be traced to the rear of the innermost. At most of the entrances the terminals of the ramparts either appear to turn slightly inwards, in the case of one side of the W entrance with each rampart butting onto the rampart behind it, or they return and unite around the ends of the ditches, essentially creating well-defined passageways leading up to the entrances in the inner wall. While the relationship between the inner wall and the outer defences is not known, it is quite likely that the outer was an earlier free-standing fortification enclosing an area measuring about 140m from N to S by 128m transversely (1.51ha). The interior is featureless and there is not even any trace of the observatory built in 1822.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 31 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2964

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