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Field Visit
Date 8 June 1989
Event ID 1100759
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1100759
This large multi-period fort occupies the top of Law Hill, Arnbathie, an inconspicuous hill on the NW flank of the Sidlaws. Roughly oval on plan, the fort measures about 154m by 90m within a heavily-robbed wall (now overlain by an old dyke) which measures up to 6m in thickness and 0.4m in height, and is pierced by four entrances (on the N, S, E and W). This wall represents the latest in a complex sequence of defences, which cannot be fully disentangled without excavation, but has probably comprised at least three phases.
Evidence for multi-phase construction can be seen most readily on the exposed N approach to the hill, between the N and W entrances. What is probably a fragment of the earliest defensive system comprises the remains of the three outermost ramparts on this side, which may have been outworks protecting a line of defence now buried beneath the inner defences. Subsequently, these outer ramparts were superceded by a short length of rampart which enhances the defences at the N entrance, and also by a rampart which forms a complete circuit outside the inner wall and must belong with the later phases of defence. A further rampart on the S has been partly destroyed by quarrying and encloses a terrace to form an annexe containing a stone-walled hut-circle with an entrance on the SSW. Additional protection in the later periods of defence was provided by a chevaux de frise which partly overlies the ramparts of the early defensive system on the N.
The four entrances to the fort are all approached along well-defined trackways. That the N entrance provided the principal access to the fort is suggested by several attendant features, viz. the thickening of the inner wall, the chevaux de frise, the ramparts, and the broad, stone-lined trackway. The S gateway appears to be blocked by a thin band of stone, but this may be no more than tumble from the adjacent wall. The W entrance is the most complex, combining elements from several phases of construction. On the S side of the gateway (which is particularly narrow) the inner wall is slightly out-turned, lying over a short stretch of earlier walling, and the trackway itself appears to be flanked by stretches of walling.
The interior of the fort has been cultivated, but a cairn (NO12NE 43) survives on the highest point, and a depression, situated to the NW, may mark the site of a pond or cistern.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS) 8 June 1989.
