Note
Date 14 September 2015 - 16 August 2016
Event ID 1045306
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045306
This small fort occupies a hillock forming the summit of the long spur dropping down from White Knowe above Hayhope Knowe. The defences comprise three ramparts and ditches, which step down the steep N flank of the hillock and swing round onto the E before disappearing beneath an area of cultivation, but at an entrance on the WNW the innermost and medial rampart contract into a single line and there are only two on the SW; there are also traces of a counterscarp bank on the N. Whether this contraction of the defences on the W and SW was part of the original design of a multivallate scheme, or whether it indicates several periods of modification and rebuilding is unclear, but it is difficult to sustain Roger Mercer's suggestion in 1986 that the inner rampart was a primary defence to which the outer ramparts were subsequently added. The D-shaped interior of the fort, measuring 61m from E to W by 47m transversely (0.02ha), is packed with traces of timber round-houses representing several periods of construction. At least twelve can be seen, comprising shallow ring-ditches, platforms encircled by shallow grooves, and simple platforms, and several have a pit in the centre, which in 1949 RCAHMS investigators identified as possible hearths. The round-houses are broadly disposed in two lines, though whether this is an accident of the sloping topography or about access from an axial 'street' is unclear. The only other features visible within the interior is a faint hollow immediately to the rear of the rampart on the N, but a trial excavation in 1949 by RCAHMS investigators revealed that it was no more than a shallow quarry behind the rampart. Surrounding the fort there are extensive traces of cultivation, including cord rig, which extends right up to the foot of the defences on the N, where Mercer suggested it might be overlain by the possible counterscarp bank; the relationship remains untested.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 16 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3438
