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Note

Date 5 December 2014 - 18 May 2016

Event ID 1044460

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044460

This fort is situated on the rocky summit (465m OD) of a spur that forms the NE end of the Black Craig ridge. The defences, a single wall, follow the edge of the summit area, which rises into two rocky bosses at either end, to form an irregular enclosure measuring internally some 110m in length from NE to SW and contracting in breadth from 75m where it faces onto the saddle with Black Craig on the SW to 32m at its mid-point, before tapering to a point on the NE. The wall itself is up to 7.5m in thickness, but typically from 4m to 5m, with long runs of well-built inner and outer faces employing thin slabs no more than 0.1m thick and in places standing between 2m and 3m in height. These higher sections have been deliberately exposed, a change in the character of the upper masonry of the inner face at the NW corner suggesting a certain amount of reconstruction. The position of the entrance is uncertain, though there is a gap in the wall in the middle of the NW side. The interior presents a series of rocky shelves and terraces which would have provided suitable stances for timber buildings. The only other features appear to be the result of more recent activity, including dugouts probably built by the Home Guard in WW2, a couple of small shelters, a possible twinning pen, and three marker cairns standing on the wall on the NE. There is also a small well in the NW part of the interior and though a survey by Headland Archaeology in 2010 suggested that it may be relatively recent, it does appear on the plan by the Rev Mackintosh Mackay dawn up about 1832 (Mackay 1857); it does not appear on a plan drawn up in 1956 by Richard Feachem.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2611

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