Note

Date 2 November 2015 - 25 October 2016

Event ID 1044932

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044932

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland

This fort or fortified settlement is situated on the rounded summit of Camp Hill and has been surveyed and excavated on numerous occasions. Oval on plan, the visible defences comprise both earthworks and a palisade trench, but whether these were constructed sequentially or were conceived as elements in a single scheme is uncertain. The earthwork component comprises twin ditches with a medial rampart and an outer counterscarp bank, though in places the latter and the outer ditch have been reduced to little more than a terrace. There is no trace of an inner rampart, but lying between 4m and 6m behind the ditch there is a palisade trench, intermittently visible where it cuts through or is obliterated by some of the timber round-houses packed within the interior. The earthwork has entrances on the SE, SW and NW, but while that on the SW also served the palisaded enclosure in the interior, it is unclear whether there were corresponding gaps in the palisade at the other two. The palisade encloses an area measuring about 59m from NE to SW by 40m transversely (0.2ha), whereas the corresponding measurements for the areas enclosed by the inner ditch are 70m and 54m respectively (0.33ha). Traces of no fewer than twenty-five ring-ditch houses are visible sprawled across the area enclosed by the inner ditch, displaying a range of relationships in which they not only intersect their immediate neighbours, but also appear to cut or be cut by the palisade trench and the inner ditch. While this last relationship may have been caused by erosion along the inner lip of the ditch, the various elements of the perimeter and the houses they enclose evidently represent a complex sequence. Excavations carried out by Robert Stevenson and Kenneth Steer in 1940 and Stevenson again in 1947-8 (Stevenson 1949), the Edinburgh University Archaeological Society in 1951-3, and by George Watson's Archaeological Society in 1968 (Brown 1968), however, have done little to clarify either the sequence of enclosure or its date. While Stevenson concentrated on two of the ring-ditch houses, the other excavations focused on the SW entrance and the character of the defences. The medial rampart was found to be little more than a dump, which Stuart Piggott, writing up the excavations of the Edinburgh University work initially believed had been faced with timberwork set in a foundation trench, and linked to palisade trenches that formed a passage running up between the terminals of the rampart and the inner ditch at the SW entrance. The subsequent brief report of the section dug in 1968, however, for which Piggott's authority is also inferred, noted that the foundation trench lay beneath the rampart, but claimed that a 'low wall of packing stones' had been piled up against the outside of the timberwork before it was encased in the rampart; the conclusion was offered that the earthwork had adapted a free-standing palisade (Brown 1968). Apart from a gold torc said to have been found by a labourer trenching within the interior in the late 18th century (Wilson 1851, 318), finds from Stevenson's excavations include a fragment of a glass bangle, coarse pottery, stone balls and a perforated stone.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 25 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3695