Archaeology Notes

Event ID 660736

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/660736

NH54SW 3 5135 4480.

(NH 5135 4480) Fort (NR)

OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1906)

A double ditch enclosing an area measuring 188' N-S x 240' E-W. The outer ditch is 18' across, the inner, 32'. They are separated by ridges 5' wide and 6' high from the bottom of the ditch.

There is now no trace of any building. It is simply an earthen mound surrounded by two trenches. The drive to Beaufort through the wood has cut through the trenches on the N side. The height of the fort on the S side is about 25'.

T Wallace 1886 and 1921

The situation and structure of this fort are not incompatible with its identification as an early medieval monument (c/f NS75SW 10), but this does not rule out the possibility that it might be of Early Christian or prehistoric date.

Information from RCAHMS to OS; visited 1957

All that survives of this probably Iron Age fort is the N arc comprising c. 30.0m of the inner ditch, c. 6.0m wide and 1.2m deep, c. 20.0m of the outer ditch, c. 5.5m wide and 0.8m deep, and the medial rampart, c. 5.5m wide and 1.1m high. There is no trace of a rampart on the outer lip of the outer ditch as illustrated by Wallace, but there is an inner rampart c. 4.0m wide and 0.4m high, to the inner ditch. There is no trace of the defences continuing around the E slopes as illustrated by Wallace, though it is possible that later tracks have destroyed them. It seems likely, judging from the 1969 6" depiction and the present state of the site, that the fort has consisted of two semicircular ditches and ramparts in the N, W, and S, cutting off a near-level area defended by a natural escarpment in the E, but it is now too denuded to be certain.

Visited by OS (A A) 13 January 1971.

Accepted as motte.

P A Yeoman 1988.