Note

Date 5 February 2016 - 18 May 2016

Event ID 1045288

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045288

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland

This fort, which had already been ploughed down by the mid 19th century, is now only known from cropmarks, though sufficient of its rampart remained visible in 1912 for James Hewat Craw to capture the broad outline of its plan (RCAHMS 1915, 30, no.57, fig 24). Slightly oval in shape, the cropmarks reveal that it measures 90m from NW to SE by 80m transversely (0.56ha) within a ditch up to 5m in breadth, and making allowance for the rampart the interior enclosed about 0.44ha. Opposed entrances lie on the NE and SW respectively, the former a gap with slightly staggered ditch terminals apparently 15m wide, and the latter a minor causeway little more than 4m wide, though the E terminal turns slightly inwards to create an oblique approach exposing the visitor's right side. While the same may be true of the entrance on the NE, its very breadth implies a more complex arrangement of the rampart than is apparent from the line of the ditch and is perhaps evidence that the defences formerly comprised twin ramparts that returned and united round the terminals of the medial ditch; this would certainly have constricted passage through what would otherwise have been an unfeasibly wide gap in the perimeter. The only feature within the interior is the NE half of what is probably an eccentrically placed, late Iron Age settlement enclosure measuring about 50m across within a narrow ditch.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC4065