Archaeology Notes

Event ID 663628

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/663628

NH85SE 7 8880 5140

(NH 8880 5140) Castle Findlay (NAT)

Vitrified Fort (NR)

OS 6" map, (1959)

Castle Finlay (NR)

OS 6" map, Nairnshire, 2nd ed., (1906)

"Castle Finlay" (spelling confirmed) a partly vitrified fort with outworks on a knoll in the fork of two streams. It is oval on plan measuring c.33.0m N to S by c.16.0m transversely within a turf-covered wall of rubble stones spread to c.6.0m in which occasional burnt stones and a few small pieces of vitrified stone can be seen. The entrance is not evident.

The fort is surrounded at a lower level by a ditch, average width c.3.0m and depth c.1.0m, scarped into the slope with the upcast forming an outer rampart c.3.5m wide and c.1.0m high. This defence is broken at two places, in the E where there is a declevity leading down the slope from the fort to a water-hole or cistern, and in the N where the defence is offset. Outside the latter is a hornwork probably protecting the entrance which was almost certainly in this quarter.

A modern footpath is constructed through the defence in the SW.

Surveyed at 1/2500 (Visited by OS [RD] 26 November 1965).

R W Feachem 1963; Visited by OS (R L) 14 January 1971.

Castle Findlay [NAT]

Fort [NR]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1980.