Archaeology Notes

Event ID 668347

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/668347

NJ62NW 21 6018 2742

(NJ 601 274) Unfinished fort, on Hill of Christ's Kirk, discovered and surveyed during survey of marginal lands 1956-8.

RCAHMS 1963; Information from RCAHMS MS plan.

This unfinished fort consists of a sub-circular, well defined trench, enclosing the hill top, with a gap in the W probably denoting an entrance. It is in turn surrounded by the scant remains of two oval marker trenches, about 10 metres apart, with the remains of another outside these apparent in the W only. The outer pair of marker trenches are impossible to trace fully in the S through whins, possibly due to soil creep, but it might be that they were never completed, as is probably the case on the steep N slope where the inner pair of marker trenches stop very abruptly.

It may be that the innermost trench is of an earlier period than the other works because of its shape and much sharper definition, and it possibly represents a palisaded homestead which was about to be succeeded by the fort.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (AA) 27 March 1969.

Fort [NR] (unfinished) [NAT]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1982.

Palisaded enclosure reported.

NMRS, MS/712/17.

GRC/AAS ground and air photography listed.

NMRS, MS/712/19, MS/712/21 and MS/712/36.

Hill enclosure. Air photographs: AAS/00/02/G3/1.

NMRS, MS/712/100.

(Reclassified as Palisaded Enclosure; Rig). This palisaded enclosure, which was formerly classified as an unfinished fort, is situated on the summit of the Hill of Christ's Kirk. Three lines of palisade trench are visible, though these are difficult to follow in the scrub vegetation that has grown up since the summit of the hill was incorporated into a new plantation. The trenches are most clearly defined on the NE, where each comprises a shallow groove or ditch some 1.2m in breadth, flanked externally by a low bank of upcast.

An area of rig-and-furrow cultivation is situated immediately E of the palisaded enclosure. Now partly obscured by the recently planted trees and rough grass, the rig is most clearly visible on vertical aerial photographs (58/RAF/1512 F21, 0116-7), taken in 1954. The rigs are aligned NNW and SSE, and probably once extended into the arable field to the S and E, which is now also planted with trees.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, IF), 4 April 1996.

Scheduled as 'Hill of Christ's Kirk, fort... visible as slight field remains and cropmarks on oblique aerial photographs'.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 13 December 2006.