Note
Date 4 August 2014 - 11 August 2016
Event ID 1044758
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044758
This fort is situated on Carman, the southernmost and lowest of the rounded summits of a ridge of hills due W of Alexandria. Its defences comprise two main elements, with a relatively small inner enclosure standing on the N side of a much larger outer work, and though their perimeters coincide upon the N, the relationship between them is unknown. The inner enclosure is oval on plan, measuring about 55m from E to W by 40m transversely (0.17ha) within a heavily-robbed wall some 3m in thickness; large sectors of the wall have been all but removed, but where best preserved, on the W, it forms a bank up to 0.9m in height, along which occasional inner and outer facing-stones are visible, and on the W and S there are also traces of shallow internal quarries. Of the two gaps in the perimeter, on the SE and SW respectively, the latter is probably the original entrance. The interior is featureless. The outer enclosure measures about 145m from NW to SE by 130m transversely (1.5ha) within a wall reduced to a band of rubble about 2.4m in thickness, along which stones of both faces can be seen, including a substantial run of the outer face on the SW. Apparently butting onto this wall on the NE and SE is an outer wall, which forms an annexe from 10m broad on the SE to 20m on the NE, but in this sector both walls are reduced largely to scarps strewn haphazardly with large slabs and boulders up to 1.5m in length by 1.2m in breadth. Of the four gaps in the rampart shown on the plan drawn up by RCAHMS in 1955, three, on the NE, S and W respectively, roughly occurring at the extreme corners of the enclosure, appear to be original, with evidence of wear by traffic. That on the NE has a corresponding gap in the outer wall, as does the fourth gap on the E. The fort evidently stands on the route of a relatively easy passage across the hills and there are a series of hollowed trackways crossing the saddle to the N and possibly including the hollowed way extending up to the entrance on the W and another feature variously forming a terrace and a hollow that was described by the RCAHMS investigators extending along the N flank of the fort immediately below the perimeter. Within the interior there are at least twelve house platforms, while another three possible examples lie within the annexe on the E.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 11 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC1338
