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Note

Date 20 December 2013 - 9 August 2016

Event ID 1045447

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1045447

This fort occupies a heavily eroded promontory on the E coast of the Machars, Its defences comprise two massive ramparts with external ditches, which are drawn in an arc across the neck of the promontory with their ends resting on the cliff-edges well beyond the margins of the promontory itself. The inner rampart is some 9.5m in thickness and the outer 11m, standing 2.5m and 3.5m above the bottoms of their corresponding ditches, which are 9m and 6m in breadth respectively. A gap in the centre of the defences probably marks the position of the original entrance, though it has been disturbed by the use of the interior as a cattle feeding stance reported in 1996. The interior measures a maximum of 46m from NW to SE by 35m transversely (0.15ha), but has evidently been much bigger, with large areas eroded on the NE and SW, and no doubt some reduction of is SE, seaward, face too. The OS reported three possible house platforms to the rear of the rampart, but it is unlikely that any trace of these will have survived the poaching caused by cattle feeding. The only other features visible within the interior are a WW II observation post, and what may have been a contemporary breastwork and weapon pit on the S margin of the promontory.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 09 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0235

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