Note
Date 17 February 2016 - 3 August 2016
Event ID 1045350
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045350
The southern end of an elongated hillock formed between two deep gullies in the hillside below Old Cambus West Mains was adapted to build a promontory fort, but the greater part of the interior had been destroyed by quarrying before 1954, at which time a shallow depression was still visible where the defences cut across the neck on the NE, but even this had been removed by 1979 and today the site is occupied by a large industrial works and its yard. The interior and probably the defences had already been ploughed when James Hardy first notes the presence of two ramparts and ditches cutting across the neck (1886, 160-1), and though James Hewat Craw describes the fort in like terms, his plan drawn up in 1909 depicts only a broad hollow, which according to his profile measurements measured some 22m in breadth (RCAHMS 1915, 31-2, no.60, fig 26). Nevertheless, the interior, which terminated in a craggy point falling away 30m to either side, measured at least 155m in length from NE to SW by up to 52m in breadth (0.63ha). Hardy records evidence of midden ploughed up within the interior, and also sandstone slabs which had been heavily heated and had either vitrifaction or slag adhering to them (1886, 161).
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 03 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC4114
