Note
Date 24 July 2015 - 19 October 2016
Event ID 1044860
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044860
This fort is situated on a steep-sided hillock that rises from the foot of the NW flank of Fairburn Rig, overlooking the upper end of the Camps Water valley, now flooded for a reservoir. Roughly oval on plan, the fort measures 73m from N to S by 54m transversely within the innermost rampart, which can be traced round the summit of the hillock, variously forming a stony bank on the SW and NE, but reduced to a scarp around the SE and NW. On the easiest line of approach, from the S and SW, no fewer than five ramparts are visible, reducing to perhaps four on the steeper NW slope, and two where the ground falls away particularly sharply along the E flank. The precise sequence of construction of the ramparts is uncertain, but on plan at least it appears that the two inner ramparts on the SW are the latest, forming part of a coherent scheme in which they return and unite around the terminal of a medial ditch on the S side of the entrance on the W. The outer of the two apparently overlies the back of an earlier rampart further down the slope, which has been reduced to a scarp immediately outside its line, dropping into the bottom of an external ditch with a counterscarp bank. But while this earlier rampart with its ditch and counterscarp bank are replicated in the arrangement of the defences to the N of the entrance, the two innermost ramparts of the later scheme are not and there is but a single rampart to represent them, and this reduced to a scarp. Evidently the complexities in these arrangements will only be understood through excavation, but a fifth rampart lying a little further down the slope on the SW, with an internal quarry scoop and an external ditch, is likely to have been an addition to the outer defences. It peters out northwards short of the entrance on the W, though there are traces of a short segment of ditch with a counterscarp bank on the NW. In addition to the entrance on the W, in which there are traces of a worn hollow dropping down between the terminals of the ramparts, there is a second entrance on the SE; here the terminals of the innermost rampart turn inwards slightly to either side of the gap and there is evidence of a track approaching obliquely up the slope to expose the visitor's left side. Traces of at least five house platforms can be seen in the N half of the interior, but the ground has been so heavily disturbed by forestry operations there may well have been others.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 19 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3217
