Field Visit
Date 17 June 1952
Event ID 1111073
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1111073
Fort, Abbey Craig.
Abbey Craig is an isolated rocky hill which rises abruptly for some 300 ft. from the Carse of Stirling a quarter of a mile E. of Causeway head. The summit of the hill is level, and near the N. end there is a fort (Fig. 8, plan, STD 2/2) which has been damaged by the construction within it of the Wallace Monument. All that remains is a substantial turf-covered bank, crescentic on plan and 260 ft. in length, the ends of which lie close to the brink of the precipice that forms the W. face of the hill. The bank stands to a maximum height of 5 ft. above the level of the interior and presumably represents a ruined timber-laced wall since numerous pieces of vitrified stones have been found on the slopes immediately below it.
The entrance to the fort presumably lay between one end of the bank and the lip of the precipice, but both the areas concerned have been disturbed by the construction of modern approaches. The interior of the fort measures about 175 ft. from N. to S. by about 125 ft. transversely and the interior is featureless. Nimmo's editor reports that ‘eleven brazen spears’ were discovered on Abbey Craig in 1784 (1).
RCAHMS 1963, visited 17 June 1952.
(1) History (1880 ed.), i, 373.