Note
Date 12 October 2015 - 20 October 2016
Event ID 1044915
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044915
This fort occupies the N end of the broad summit area of Whiteside Hill, dominating the slope dropping down into the saddle that links the hill to the White Knowe on the ridge to the NNE. Oval on plan the fort measures 73m from NNE to SSW by 61m transversely within three ramparts with intermediate ditches forming a multivallate belt in excess of 20m deep. In drawing up a plan in 1959, however, RCAHMS investigators postulated that this belt represented two periods of construction, in which the two outer ramparts and a medial ditch were added to an originally univallate circuit comprising the inner rampart and the inner ditch. Their reasoning lay with the four entrances they identified, on the NNE, NE, E and WSW respectively, and in particular that through the inner rampart on the NNE, which appeared to be blocked by the medial rampart outside it. It should be noted, however, that this whole sector of the defences is more heavily degraded than anywhere on the rest of the circuit, including the inner rampart, which was evidently demolished in antiquity prior to the construction of a later enclosure within the interior. Thus, while their observation may be correct, the explanation may be more complex, and they do not account for why the earlier gap was left unblocked in the inner line of defence of the multivallate scheme. In their view the entrance into the multivallate fort was reconstructed a little further round on the NE, with an oblique approach that exposes the visitor's right side, matching the design of the entrance on the WSW. The entrance on the E, they contended, was inserted through the earlier defences to serve the later enclosure constructed within the interior, which also reused the WSW entrance. The perimeter of this enclosure, which has been reduced to a grass-grown bank of rubble, is set to the rear of the inner rampart on the NE and S, but clearly overlies its line on the ESE and WNW, enclosing an irregular area measuring 63m from NNE to SSW by 60m transversely (0.3ha); the SE side was subsequently adapted into the perimeter of a smaller enclosure. Within the larger enclosure there are at least ten probable crescentic scarps denoting the backs of house platforms, but it is uncertain to which phase of construction any of them belong. In addition to the core multivallate defences, there are outlying earthworks on both the N and the S that have been described as annexes, though that on the N, apparently with an entrance gap on the N, is entirely open along its W side and certainly does not form a complete enclosure. The S annexe comprises an irregular ditch with an external bank enclosing 0.14ha; it is just as likely to be the remains of an earlier hilltop enclosure, possibly unfinished, as a subsidiary enclosure of the fort. on the opposite side of the saddle to the NNE there is also a short cross-ridge-dyke, though whether it is associated with the fort is unknown.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 20 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3623
