Note
Date 18 August 2015 - 24 May 2016
Event ID 1045105
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045105
The remains of a fort overlain by a late Iron Age settlement are situated on the S end of the elongated summit of Kirkton Hill. Oval on plan, the fort measures internally about 58m from NE to SW by 52m transversely (0.25ha), but its defences have been obscured by the construction of the later settlement, which not only occupies the interior, but sprawls across the ramparts on the relatively level N flank, while on the E they are overlain by a rectilinear settlement enclosure and elsewhere ploughed-down by rig and furrow cultivation. Nevertheless, a belt of at least two ramparts and ditches, the outer with a counterscarp bank, can be seen stepping down the slope on the SW in a series of scarps and terraces, while on the N the inner forms a scarp beneath the later settlement, and the outer can be traced with an external ditch and a counterscarp bank. From outside the latter another ditch with an external bank extends across to the escarpment forming the W flank of the hill, before turning southwards and petering out on the slope. The fort may have been succeeded by an enclosure following the line of the inner rampart, but this has been incorporated into a series of yards and scooped courts associated with no fewer than thirteen round-houses, most of which are stone-founded and are probably late Iron Age in date; a markedly rectilinear enclosure containing two scooped courts was considered to date from the later Middle Ages by the RCAHMS investigators in 1948, but it is probably another element of the late Iron Age settlement. The position of the entrance into the fort is unknown, though the RCAHMS investigators suggest that it is probably in the obliterated SE sector of the defences.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 24 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3302
