Field Visit

Date May 1978 - May 1985

Event ID 553142

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/553142

This fort is situated in heather and rough grazing on the summit of a conical hill at an altitude of 563m OD. Field visits have revealed the following:

1. children's scoops in the (main) wall,

2. a second wall (mainly comprising a row of huge boulders) low down on the N and E flanks of the hill,

3. outside the fort (to the S) there are what are possibly either quarries or platforms for timber-framed houses,

4. platforms to NE of fort may be quarries but some are similar to hut-platforms, measuring c. 10m in diameter; there is a further platform immediately S of the entrance,

5. traces of outworks are discernible as breaks of slope outside the entrance to the SE, but are too vague to survey

6. the well or cistern is now choked with stones but contains some water; the interior is otherwise featureless.

Macdonald (1886) cut two sections through the wall of the upper fort while samples of vitrified rock were taken from the main enclosure by Prof. R Kazmann for analysis at Louisiana State University.

(GRC/AAS plans and ground and air photographs listed).

Information from Aberdeenshire Archaeological Service, June 1997 (visited May 1978, April 1981 and May 1985).

NMRS, MS/712/19 and MS/712/36.