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Note
Date 2 January 2016 - 20 October 2016
Event ID 1045243
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045243
Cropmarks have revealed a fort occupying a promontory formed where a minor tributary has broken through the N lip of the gully of the Spott Burn. Though the channel of the tributary in the field to the N is largely filled, it is clearly visible as a cropmark extending in a shallow curve westwards and would formally have emphasised the character of the promontory. Two ditches drawn in an arc across the neck on the W bar access from this direction, while elsewhere the interior is defined by no more than the low escarpment dropping into the gully. The ditches lie some 10m apart, the inner about 3m in breadth and the outer rather broader at 5.5m, and while neither can be traced to the lip of the gully on the S, on the N they both appear to terminate just short of the silted channel, probably marking the position of an entrance along this margin of the promontory. The inner ditch, however is also broken by a broad causeway on the W, and, if there is a corresponding gap in the outer ditch, which disappears into an area of natural cropmarkings, it certainly does not directly oppose it. This and the rather narrower character of the inner ditch perhaps indicate that rather than a single scheme of defence, the two ditches and their upcast ramparts were successive, though there is no evidence as to which might have been the earlier. The inner cuts off an area measuring about 60 m in length from E to W by a maximum of 65m transversely (0.28ha) and allowing for the presence of an internal rampart the interior would have extended to about 0.25ha: the outer encloses an area measuring 75m in length by 65m in breadth (0.41ha), its interior extending to about 0.36ha. The only feature visible within the fort is a length of ditch extending across the interior from ESE to WNW; its purpose is unknown.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 20 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3908
