Note
Date 1994
Event ID 1103287
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1103287
N.B. The following text is based on that written about the fort by S P Halliday (RCAHMS 1994, 55-6)
The fort on Dunsinane Hill is the most spectacular of the fortifications in the area, commanding a wide sweep of country across the lower end of Strathmore. The association of its name with Macbeth has led to the series of antiquarian excavations that now disfigure the interior. At the core, crowning the summit of the hill, there is a massively-defended citadel, which almost certainly occupies the site of an earlier fort, but there are also traces of a large outer enclosure. The defences of the citadel comprise a substantial inner wall, possibly as much as 9m thick, accompanied by two outer ramparts, which together enclose an area measuring about 52m by 25m. The interior of the fort, particularly at the E end, has been extensively trenched by the early excavators, who also attempted to trace the outer wall-face, creating the narrow ledge visible at the foot of the wall today. The entrance is probably on the NE, approached by a winding trackway which passes obliquely through the outer lines of defence. On the N side of the fort, the outer rampart blocks an earlier trackway, which, lower down the slope, passes through what is an original entrance in the heavily-robbed rampart of the outer enclosure. The latter feature, which takes in a series of terraces on the hill, must, therefore, predate the visible defences on the summit. Indeed, the present state of its rampart on the upper terraces of the hill leaves little doubt that it has been robbed to provide stone for the defences of the citadel. On the lower terrace, to the S, it is in a considerably better state of repair, forming a stony bank 2.5m in thickness with several visible rims of outer facing-stones. In all, this rampart encloses an area of 2.16 ha, and there are traces of several crescentic scarps indicating the positions of timber houses on the terrace that forms the southern part of the interior. There is also a stone-walled hut-circle overlying the rampart on the S side of the fort.
The sequence of construction between the visible defences on the summit of the hill and the rampart taking in the surrounding terraces may be reasonably clear, but there is less certainty concerning the question of the presumed earlier fort on the summit. Indeed, there is little tangible evidence for such a fortification at all. The most persuasive evidence for the existence of an earlier fort on the summit of the hill is the quantity of vitrified stone that is strewn about the inner defences, and the three pieces that were identified in the course of survey along the rampart enclosing the southern terrace. None of this material appears to be in situ, and it may be argued that it has been robbed from an earlier timber-laced wall. To a certain extent, the case is sustained by the confused accounts of the antiquarian excavations on the hill, which do not appear to have located a vitrified core to the inner wall, but it would be unwise to imply a relationship between an earlier fortification on the summit and the rampart taking in the terraces on the strength of the three pieces of vitrified stone found in the S side of the fort.
In view of the historical associations of the place-name, it is not surprising that the fort has been the scene of two sets of antiquarian investigations. The first was carried out in about 1799 by James Playfair, and the second in 1854 by a Mr Nairne, who then owned the hill. The results of these investigations are far from clear, and the published accounts are both confused and conflicting. Sketches by Skene (SAS 465; PTD/323/3) and Stewart (as published by Christison in 1900) show that Playfair drove a trench from the entrance through the centre of the fort and dug a number of pits on the line of the wall. Nairne concentrated his efforts on trenching the E part of the interior, where he claimed to have found the base of a 'tower' and a two-chambered structure. The trenches and mounds of spoil that have resulted from these excavations give little clue to the nature of the structures that were uncovered; the finds, which included a bronze spiral finger-ring and a quern, have been lost. The excavations do show, however, that the deposits in the eastern part of the interior are quite deep, sufficient to bury the walls of the two chambers. The discovery of the skeletal remains of two adults and a child in a blocked-off 'passage' between the two chambers may indicate that Nairne also broke into an earlier burial chamber set in the summit of the hill.
Information from RCAHMS (SPH) 1994.
