Note

Date 20 January 2016 - 21 October 2016

Event ID 1045153

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045153

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland

This fort is situated on the shoulder of a low spur that projects NE from the rising ground on the W side of Lauderdale. Roughly circular on plan, three ramparts are preserved everywhere except on the SE, where a quadrant of the defences to the rear of the old shepherd's cottage has been demolished. Detailed examination of these defences, however, suggests that they represent two periods of construction, the innermost, which in contrast to the outer ramparts has no flanking ditch, probably representing a settlement inserted into the interior of an earlier fort. This fort measures about 115m in internal diameter (1ha) and its defences comprise two substantial ramparts with external ditches, the outer depicted about 1912 by James Hewat Craw with a short fragment of a counterscarp bank surviving on the N (RCAHMS 1915, 114-15, no.216, fig 105); together these form an impressive belt at least 25m deep. The perimeter of the innermost settlement enclosure is not only slighter in construction, but according to Craw's profile of the defences on the W its interior has been dug into the slope, measuring a little over 90m in diameter (0.64ha); two or three stone-founded round-houses are set round the N side at the foot of the rampart adjacent to a later quarry pit. Craw's plan shows opposed entrances on the NE and SW respectively. At the former the ramparts of the fort return and unite around the terminals of the inner ditch, and the hollow of the entrance way continues directly into the gap in the settlement enclosure; no such details are shown by Craw at the SW entrance, but here the gap in the settlement enclosure is apparently offset to the E from the axis of the entrance through the fort ramparts.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 21 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC4016