Note
Date 31 December 2015 - 9 August 2016
Event ID 1045242
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045242
This fort, one of two on Doon Hill (see Atlans No.3910), is situated on the WSW end of the elongated summit overlooking Spott House, and though its ramparts and ditches have been heavily ploughed down, traces of two of them are still visible as undulations in the surface of the field, cutting across the crest of the hill on the ENE to turn sharply along the S flank, and almost certainly returning along the edge of the steep escarpment falling away on the NW. Thus defined, the fort is pear-shaped on plan, tapering towards the WSW, and measures internally some 120m from ENE to WSW by a maximum of 75m transversely (0.75ha). The cropmarks, however, suggest a more complex configuration, with no fewer than three ditches crossing the crest of the hill and turning onto the S flank, though the markings are too diffuse in this sector to correlate them precisely with the standing remains of the ramparts, and are further confused by what is probably an internal quarry scoop to the rear of the rampart elsewhere on the S. In addition, photographs taken in 1984 show two possible palisade trenches concentrically outside the outer ditch on the ENE, the outer intersecting the outermost palisade of the adjacent fort, and though they cannot be traced along the southern flank, other trenches can probably be detected amongst the markings at the WSW tip of the fort. In this same year, the arc of yet another palisade trench was photographed cutting across the WSW end of the interior, with two post-holes flanking an entrance on the NE. No other features have been detected within the interior, and only one entrance is certainly visible, marked by a deep re-entrant in the line of the outer rampart on the S; apparently elaborate, exploiting a natural hollow in the hillside, the cropmarks are too diffuse to resolve the details of its plan. This entrance was not noted by the RCAHMS investigators who visited in 1913, and they suggested the entrance was on the NW, apparently marked by a gap in the defences some 9m in breadth.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 09 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3907
