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Note
Date 11 August 2014 - 16 November 2016
Event ID 1044775
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044775
Little is now visible of the fort that occupies the central portion of Dechmont Hill, which is a ridge lying roughly ENE and WSW. As recorded by the OS in 1959, it is D-shaped on plan, backing onto the steep escarpment that forms the NNW flank of the hill. Elsewhere they traced two ramparts set some 20m apart, though for the most part these were reduced to little more than scarps on the slope, and an entrance with a hollowed track leading up to it was visible on the W. Within the interior, which measured about 80m from ENE to WSW by 65m transversely (0.4ha), there were traces of a third rampart forming a discrete enclosure about 40m in internal diameter on the summit of the hill; it is unclear whether this was associated with the outer defences or was perhaps a later enclosure inserted into the interior. The only other feature of note is a burial cairn about 10m in diameter by 0.9m in height beneath the OS triangulation Station upon the summit; notable for its encircling ditch with external bank, it is probably the site of the discovery of a Bronze Age Food Vessel donated to the National Museum of Antiquities in 1882 (Proc Soc Antiiq Scotland16, 1882, 147). Antiquarian excavations about the end of the 1780s uncovered 'the foundation of a circular building, about 24 feet in diameter' (Stat Acct, v, 1793, 264n), but it is perhaps more likely that this was part of the burial cairn on the summit rather than a domestic structure within the fort.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 16 November 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC1464
