Note

Date 5 November 2015 - 25 October 2016

Event ID 1044985

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044985

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland

The fort at Castle Law, which has been in Guardianship since 1924, stands on a low summit forming part of the SE spur of Castlelaw Hill. Oval on plan, its defences comprise an inner enclosure defended by a single rampart, and an eccentric outer enclosure with at least two. The inner encloses an area measuring about 82m from ENE to WSW by 35m transversely (0.25ha), and the outer, almost certainly representing a separate phase of construction, an area about 105m by 55m (0.48ha). Not only is the outer enclosure much larger, but its defences are more complex, comprising twin ramparts with a medial ditch around most of the circuit, though subsequent cultivation has distorted the outer lines on the SSE flank, to the extent that it is unclear on the S whether the various scarps visible represent a berm between the inner rampart and the medial ditch or the insertion of an additional rampart. This circuit is also accompanied by an internal quarry ditch, which was exploited by the builders of the souterrain sunk into the rear of the rampart on the S side of the entrance at the ENE end of the fort. This entrance is one of three, the others being on the SSE and WSW and marked by deeply worn hollows mounting the slope through the rampart of the inner enclosure into the interior. The relationship between the inner and outer enclosures is uncertain, despite two campaigns of excavation, the first by Gordon Childe in 1931-2 (1933), and the second by Stuart and Margaret Piggott in 1948 (1952). The Piggott's concentrated on the rampart of the inner enclosure at the ENE entrance, where Childe had previously uncovered the posts of a timber gateway. While their work did little to clarify the character of the gateway, they uncovered evidence of transverse beam channels within the rampart and a foundation trench at the rear holding upright timbers that rose through the clay core. In the light of the excavations at Hownam Rings, their working assumption was that the outer ramparts were a later addition to this inner circuit, though there is no stratigraphic observation from either survey or excavation to confirm or deny such a sequence, and the heavy wear that is visible in the SSE and SSW entrance could have as easily formed if the inner enclosure was a later insertion. In any case, the sequence was almost certainly more complex than any simple expansion or contraction model, as can be seen in the pattern of post-holes, foundation-trenches, ramparts and ditches uncovered by Childe in the outer part of the ENE entrance. Clearly multi-period, possibly including an earlier palisade trench and apparently showing elements of the inner rampart of the outer enclosure overlying the fill of the internal quarry ditch, the stratigraphy cannot be unpicked without further excavation, but at some stage there appears to have been a timber-lined entrance passage turning in obliquely through the causeway across the ditches to expose the visitor's left side; the inner end was possibly provide with timber-lined inturns. Most of the finds from Childe's excavation came from the souterrain, including a range of Roman goods, but by its very position this implies that the defences were already abandoned by the early centuries AD.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 25 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3710