Archaeology Notes

Event ID 665429

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/665429

NJ04NW 5 0039 4955.

(NJ 0039 4955 ) Doune of Relugas (NR)

Doune of Relugas, a fort showing evidence of vitrification, on a wooded knoll in a bend of the River Divie.

The level summit of the knoll measures about 48.0m NW-SE by about 27.0m transversely and is surrounded by a denuded wall overlaid by a path and a modern enclosure wall which have used it as a foundation. No facing stones are evident and the thickness of the wall cannot be determined, but its content of small rubble stones suggest it was timber-laced and one or two small pieces of vitrification were seen.

The masses of vitrified stones and boulders referred to by Feachem (R W Feachem 1963) are not evident. The position of the entrance is not

clear but it may have been in the E, as stated by Feachem, where the entrance to the modern enclosure is. A pile of stones inside this entrance is a clearance heap probable from the interior of the fort which has been used as a ornamental shrubbery, as has the rest of the knoll.

The easier approaches from the N and W are barred near the base of the knoll by a curving ditch about 5.5m wide and 2.0m deep with an outer rampart about 5.5m wide and about 1.5m high. There is a modern cutting through the rampart in the NW. In the SW it is truncated by a building and in the NE by a path.

Revised at 1/2500(OS field Surveyor NKB 27 August 1965).

Visited by OS (AA) 23 April 1971.

The discovery of 'some fragments of Roman pottery' is noted during excavation by Sir T Dick Lauder.

New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845.