Note
Date 5 February 2016 - 25 October 2016
Event ID 1045291
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045291
This fort, which is situated on the sloping NE flank of Cockburn Law immediately above a steep escarpment dropping into the gorge of the Whiteadder Water, is better known for the broch occupying the NW end of the interior. This has attracted numerous antiquaries and archaeologists, who have variously excavated in the broch and the houses of the late Iron Age or Roman Iron Age settlement that sprawls across the SE half of the fort and overlie the defences at that end. The clearest circuit comprises double ramparts and ditches, which enclose an area measuring about 135m from ESE to WNW by 75m transversely, an area of some 0.87ha. A section partially excavated across these defences on the S in 1996 (Dunwell 1999) showed that the inner rampart was possibly faced externally but had been reduced to a bank 8.45m thick by 1.45m high, fronted by a ditch some 6m broad and possibly as much as 3m deep; the outer rampart was composed of five stratigraphic elements, which suggested a sequence of construction in which a primary counterscarp bank on the lip of the inner ditch had been enlarged with material dug from the outer ditch, though the elapse of time between these events was uncertain and this may have reflected no more than a convenient constructional sequence. A third bank some 5.5m in thickness by 1.1m in height lying within the interior in this sector, apparently forming part of a subrectangular enclosure around the broch was also sectioned, uncovering a faced wall 3.7m in thickness by 1.25m in height, with an external ditch on the S 3.5m in breadth; these were interpreted by the excavator as a secondary construction within the fort, probably associated with the broch. While this bank almost certainly incorporates elements of an enclosure around the broch, the foundations of which can be traced elsewhere, it is far more substantial here than elsewhere, and a detailed examination of the rest of the defences in this sector suggests that the explanation may be rather more complex. The defences of the fort in this sector are not only markedly more substantial than further E, but the inner rampart appears to change direction just to the W of a possible entrance in the middle of the S side, turning slightly westwards from a line that would otherwise project onto the SW corner of the supposed broch enclosure; far more likely, the broch enclosure has adapted a fragment of the rampart of a primary univallate fort, in front of which on the W a ditch at least 5m in breadth can still be seen. Unlike the inner rampart, the line of neither the outer nor its accompanying ditch deviate along the S side, indicating that these were probably an addition to the extended scheme embracing the whole circuit; if the possible entrance here is a feature of the original fort, the outer ditch appears to carry across the gap unbroken. Another gap on the W has clearly been broken through the defences, but the character of a gap on the WSW is less certain, and any entrance in the eastern end is obscured by the later settlement.
The western end of the earlier fort was probably partly demolished and extended long before the erection of the broch, which measures 16.8m in diameter within a wall between 5.2m and 6.4m in thickness, and has three mural chambers, one with a stair, and an entrance flanked by guard cells opening to the E. The whole of the eastern half of the fort is subdivided into courts and yards by low walls, which also flank a long passage entering the settlement from the ESE. At least ten stone founded round-houses are associated with this settlement, one of them an unusually large structure some 14m in diameter. The only dateable finds from the excavations - a fragment of glass armlet and a bronze stud - are associated with the broch or the later settlement, indicating that the defences were probably derelict by the late Iron Age, and certainly did not remain in use into the Roman Iron Age.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 25 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC4069
