Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Note

Date 8 August 2014 - 16 November 2016

Event ID 1044770

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044770

This fort comprises an inner and outer enclosure, the former taking in the summit of Dunwan Hill, and the latter a much larger area extending down the slope. Roughly triangular on plan, the interior of the inner enclosure measures about 74m from NE to SW by a maximum of 45m transversely (0.27ha), its extent defined by the lip of the summit area, but with evidence of a substantial stone rampart up to on the E and S flanks, now largely reduced to little more than a line of outer facing stones some 3.5m below the lip. A well-defined entrance can be seen at the apex of the SW end, with a hollowed track dropping down the slope below, while within the interior there are traces of two timber round-houses, each defined by a shallow groove about 0.6m in breadth. On the SW, where the outer rampart is overlain by a later stone dyke, the outer defences comprise a low stony bank with an internal ditch some 3m broad, but elsewhere little more than a scarp or terrace can be traced round the foot of the hill, enclosing an oval area measuring about 130m from NE to SW by 90m transversely (0.94ha); terminals to the ditch to either side of the bottom of the hollowed trackway dropping down from the inner entrance suggest that there was also an entrance in the outer defences on the SW. While the OS in 1955 suggested that this outer enclosure was possibly associated with later farming enclosures around the hill, as Richard Feachem observed, it appears a convincing if unusual enclosure on aerial photographs, and he also speculated that there was perhaps yet another rampart amongst the field banks about 20m beyond it.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 16 November 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC1429

People and Organisations

References