Note
Date 20 December 2013 - 18 October 2016
Event ID 1045442
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045442
The earthworks of this promontory work almost certainly represent several periods of construction, though the precise sequence and their date are not known, and nor their relationship to the ditch cutting off the adjacent promontory to the E. The axis of the promontory itself lies NE and SW, projecting at an angle from this generally S-facing coast in such a way that the defences have been drawn across the relatively level line of approach from the NE to swing round its sloping N flank to meet the cliff-line on the NW; the NW sector however, has been mutilated by a quarry dug at some time between 1955 and 1973 and little more than the innermost rampart is visible here. This latter measures up to 1.6m in height and is accompanied by an external ditch up to 6m in breadth by 1.5m in depth where it is cut through the spine of the promontory on the NE adjacent to a causeway approaching a gap in the rampart. As it appears today, this causeway is a built trackway up to 5m wide, which rides over all the defences and is shown on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Wigtownshire 1850, sheet 37)extending a further 30m into the field on the NE, suggesting that the gap in the innermost rampart is secondary; on a plan drawn up by RCAHMS in 1955, another entrance is shown through both the inner and outermost defences in the mutilated area adjacent to the cliff-edge on the NW. In the levelled sector on the NW, the ditch accompanying this outermost rampart was up to 9m in breadth, narrowing to 6m where it crosses the promontory on the NE. The rampart now forms a low bank no more than 3m in breadth, and seems to cut across the line of a medial rampart with an external ditch that can also be seen cutting across the promontory beneath the stone field dyke on the NE; the best preserved length of this rampart is a tump between the cliff-edge and the S side of the causeway of the secondary trackway. The interior, which measures a maximum of 40m in length from NE to SW by 18m transversely (0.06ha) is featureless, but with the evident complexity in the sequence of construction either of the outer ramparts may have acted as an independent enclosure; the outermost took in a total area of 0.2ha.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0230
