Note
Date 20 December 2013 - 23 May 2016
Event ID 1045401
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045401
This fort encloses the summit of Core Hill, a local high-point lying immediately S of Kirkmaiden churchyard. Its defences comprise up to four ramparts accompanied by ditches, but all are severely denuded and only the innermost forms a complete circuit, enclosing an oval area measuring 28.3m from NNE to SSW by 21m transversely (0.05ha). On the N this rampart has been reduced to a scarp up to 2.3m in height, while elsewhere it forms a low bank measuring a maximum of 3.4m in thickness by no more than 0.5m in height. Evidence of an external ditch up to 4.5m in breadth by 0.3m in depth can be seen on the SSW and NE, continuing round the N side of the hill as a level terrace cut into the slope. The outer ramparts are visible only on the SSW, currently clothed in dense thickets of gorse, and while they may not have extended along the steep W flank of the hillock, they have probably been ploughed out around the gentler E flank; indeed in 1911 Alexander Curle of RCAHMS noted traces of two ramparts immediately adjacent to the churchyard wall. The first of the outer ramparts on the SSW is 3.4m in thickness by 0.8m in height, and the second 4.2m by 0.6m; the ditch between them is 4.5m broad by 0.5m deep. Another ditch and rampart of similar proportions lie outside them. On the E a gap in the innermost rampart possibly marks the position of an entrance.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 23 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0195
