Field Visit
Date 22 April 1925
Event ID 1098574
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1098574
Fort on Margin of Moor Dam, Keir Plantation.
This fort, known locally as "The Roman Camp" or "The Trench Knowe," lies between the 100- and 200-feet contour lines, at a point about 600 yards to the north-east of Moor Cottage. It is so close to the Moor Dam that the segment of it immediately adjacent to this artificial pond has been seriously encroached. upon by the processes of banking-up and path making. The actual site is a low and roughly pear-shaped elevation which rises, with its longer axis north-west and south-east, from ground that must always have been more or less swampy. Round its margin, and enclosing an area of fully an acre, runs a scarp such asmay once have been surmounted by a palisade, and outside of this is a shallow but fairly well defined ditch, beyond which again, and representing at least part of its upcast, is a mound of earth with a height varying from 2 to 3 feet, and an average "spread" of about 20 feet. The dimensions of the ditch are far from uniform. On the north-east segment it is only about 20 feet wide, while on a line drawn due east and west at the intersection of the axes it is some 10 or 12 feet wider. Here and there, where it is widest, particularly on the southwest segment, there are indications of a third mound, lying about 20 feet out from its inner lip and perhaps intended to support additional palisading. The ground is largely overgrown with trees and bracken, so that the outline of the whole is difficult to make out. There are no traces of an entrance.
RCAHMS 1933, visited 22 April 1925.
