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Note
Date 2 August 2014 - 16 November 2016
Event ID 1044753
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044753
The remains of this fort are situated on the summit of Wardlaw Hill, but its defences are heavily reduced by cultivation, so much so that the precise course of the eastern half is unknown. Nevertheless, the interior is probably oval on plan, measuring up to 95m from NE to SW by 60m transversely within a rampart up to 4.5m in thickness by 0.6m in height. This is best preserved on the NW, but can be traced as a scarp some 2.5m in height around the SW quarter, where there is also evidence of a ditch 4.5m in breadth and a counterscarp rampart 5m in thickness by 0.5m in height. The interior is featureless and the position of the entrance is unknown. A trial excavation on the NW in 1985 demonstrated that the rampart is constructed of earth and stone and overlies an earlier bank, which was already heavily denuded and spread at the time of the rampart's construction (Halpin 1992, 121-6). The earlier bank seems to have been constructed of material stripped from the surfaces both inside and outside its line, whereas the later rampart had a core of large stones and boulders. The excavator suggested that two narrow, stone-lined trenches set about 2m apart immediately within the interior may have held upright timbers revetting the rampart, but while these were apparently cut through deposits washed off the earlier bank there is no compelling evidence to relate them to the structure of the rampart, nor indeed that they held timberwork.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 16 November 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC1329
