Archaeology Notes

Event ID 662390

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/662390

NH67NE 1 6968 7687.

(NH 6968 7687) Fort (NR) (unfinished)

OS 6" map, (1969)

An unfinished fort enclosing a near-level area measuring approximately 220.0m E-W by 80.0m, on the summit of a hill named Cnoc an Duin. The defences comprise a partly-constructed inner wall, and an outer work, mainly visible as a discontinuous terrace. There is no evidence of artificial construction in the E, where a steep rocky gully provides a natural defence. No marker trenches, as observed in other unfinished forts, can be seen.

The wall extends from just S of the entrance in the W, along the N edge of the summit to the gully in the E, protecting the easiest approach, and of this, only about 90.0m, immediately E of the entrance, shows signs of completion, surviving to a maximum height of 1.2m. Elsewhere, gaps in the tumble suggest that the wall was being built in sections about 20.0m long. Inner and outer facing stones are visible intermittently indicating a wall thickness of c. 2.6m at the E end, increasing to c. 3.8m at the entrance. The footings of the outer face continue unbroken across the entrance forming a threshold. The N side of the entrance is c. 1.0m high, but there is no evidence of the S side in tumble, which extends S for c. 14.0m before petering out. A gap of c. 5.0m towards the E end of the wall may be another entrance, as the last 20.0m of the wall to the E is offset.

The outer terrace around the N, W and S flanks of the hill is constructed by scraping into the slope, with the excavated material thrown outwards. There are a number of quarry scoops, mainly on the line of the terrace, but also above and below it. The entrance is in the W, coincident with that in the inner wall, and for 20.0m to the N of it, material from quarry scoops, including much stone, has been piled on the outer lip of the terrace to form a rampart c. 5.0m wide. A break in the terrace near its NE end on the E gully may be an entrance.

Except for a hollow, 0.7m in diameter, with a modern dry-stone surround on the highest point of the hill, alleged to be a well, the interior is featureless.

ISSFC 1902; R W Feachem 1963; Visited by OS (N K B) 2 November 1970.

This unfinished fort occupies a promontory at the west end of a ridge of this name which overlooks the left bank of the Strathrory river, in Ross and Cromarty. The line to be followed by the proposed inner defence, a stone rampart, was clearly indicated by the well-defined margin of the promontory which forms a natural marker. When construction work ceased a bank of stones about 3.0m wide had been piled up along a little under half the perimeter of the proposed fort. On the west, where a start had been made on actually building the wall or rampart on either side of an entrance, there remains a continuous line of built outer face 53.4m in length, the lowest course of which runs across the entrance to form a doorstep. The parallel inner face is interrupted at the entrance by a gap 1.8m wide. On the north side of the entrance the built faces of the wall, now collapsed inwards over the core, reach eight courses in height, but on the south side, as far as their termination, only two courses. From these remains and those on Little Conval NJ23NE 1) it would appear that walls of this kind were built by first gathering a certain amount of stones along the chosen line, then building the foundations of the wall-faces, and finally gathering or quarrying more stones to increase the height of the faces and the core to the desired limit.

R W Feachem 1971.