Note
Date 21 April 2015 - 18 May 2016
Event ID 1044347
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044347
This fort occupies the rounded summit of Shaw Hill and extends a little way down its E spur where the surrounding slopes are slightly steeper. At the time it was surveyed by RCAHMS in 2002, the fort had only recently been cleared of trees and was strewn with stumps and brashings which obscured much of the interior. Nevertheless, the main defences comprise a rampart up to 5m in thickness and from 0.7m to 1.5m in height enclosing an elongated area measuring about 225m from ESE to WNW by 135m transversely (2.7ha). An outer rampart reduced to a scarp 0.5m high can be traced around the S and W, but it apparently converges on the line of the inner on the SSE and NNW, indicating that it may belong to an earlier circuit; in places an internal quarry scoop can be detected to its rear, while at one point on the WNW it is accompanied by a shallow external ditch. There is an entrance on the WNW, and two other gaps on the SSE and N respectively may also be original. A fourth gap near the W angle is probably modern, and the inner rampart adjacent to this has been heavily disturbed by the excavation of trenches and bunkers during WWII. Rig and furrow extends across much of the interior, the only other visible feature being a cup-marked stone. In 1983 pieces of vitrifaction were noted in the rampart at the W end (Watt 1983) and excavation trenches dug across the defences in 2006, demonstrated that the inner rampart, which measured 2.6m in thickness by 1m in height, had been extensively burnt. There was no evidence that the outer rampart had been burnt, but at some point following the destruction of the inner a relatively narrow wall about 1m thick was built between the two on the WNW (Cook et al 2006).
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2965
