Field Visit
Date 17 May 1913
Event ID 1087319
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1087319
Round the summit of a hillock, just inside the south-east end of the strip of plantation known as the Black Castle Woods, about 5/8 mile west of Newlands and at an elevation of 900 feet above sea-level, is the fort known as the “Black Castle”. It is almost circular in outline (fig. 69 [plan]) and measures 383 feet in length by 342 feet in breadth inside, the longer axes running north-west and south-east. The inner defence is formed by a high stone wall over-grown with grass, 18 feet broad at base and rising 5 ½ feet above the inner level and 10 feet above the bottom of a ditch outside, which now is 18 feet broad and 1 ½ to 4 ½ feet deep on the counterscarp. An outer wall 7 feet broad at the foundation and feet high is erected about 8 feet from the edge of the counterscarp, but for some distance round the north-east arc it is placed on the edge of the ditch. Part of the outer wall on the south-west flank appears on the edge of afield outside the stone dyke which encloses the plantation at this place, and a portion of it has been destroyed in building the dyke. Near the centre of the west arc and in the south arc broad gaps 15 feet wide occur in the inner wall, opposite which the ditch has not been excavated or has been filled up. The outer wall having been destroyed at these places, itis impossible to say definitely if they had been entrances, but this seems improbable, as some of the foundation stones of the inner wall are still in situ in these gaps. To the south-east, what looks like an entrance passage some 10 feet wide with a slight wall on either side 2 ½ feet high, extends for a distance of 42 feet outwards from the edge of the counterscarp of the ditch and through the outer wall, which recurves into the walls of the passage on either side, but this roadway is not carried over the ditch or through the inner wall. An entrance may have existed at the north-north-west corner, where is a disused quarry. Immediately to the south-east of the quarry, inside the fort, there is an oval depression, apparently surrounded by a stone wall, measuring 45 feet from east to west and 30 feet from north to south.
RCAHMS 1924, visited 17 May 1913.
