Archaeology Notes

Event ID 709228

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/709228

NT03SE 2 0996 3205

(NT 0996 3205) The Rings (NAT)

Fort (NR)

OS 6" map, (1967).

On Chester Rig are the remains of a nearly circular, small fort with a mean internal diameter of 185' in which a settlement was later constructed. The fort, which is built on a slight knoll, was defended by two walls with a medial ditch. An artificial depression outside the entrance on the NW does not appear to have belonged to the defensive system, and its date and purpose are ob- scure. The inner wall was drawn round the margin of the summit-area, and the sides of the knoll appear to have been trimmed to form a continuous scarp, up to 5' in height, which extends from the base of the wall to the bottom of the ditch. Almost all traces of the inner wall have been removed, possibly to provide material for the settlement wall. The maximum height of the outer wall is 4'. For most of its length it borders the outer lip of the ditch, but on the SE the two are separated by a narrow berm. The ditch, which is now almost completely silted up, is interrupted on the NW by the entrance, 8' in width, and on the E by unquarried rock-outcrops.

The settlement measures about 155' in diameter within a wall which lies at a distance varying from 7' to 21' inside the earlier one. The wall is now reduced to a band of rubble from which three surviving stones of the outer face protrude. Immediately within the entrance, which is aligned with that of the fort, a quarried hollow 3' deep runs into the interior for 20 yds before branching to SE and E. The absence of a spoil heap of surface soil, such as accompanies a modern quarry, and the presence of the stone foundations of three circular houses on the brink of the depression, imply that this unusual feature is most probably an original one. The houses measure 30' in diameter within walls about 4' thick. Faint traces of what may have been five more houses of the same kind are indicated on the plan by broken lines.

D Christison 1887; RCAHMS 1967, visited 1957.

Generally as described by RCAHMS. Six definite houses exist in the interior of the settlement.

Revised at 1/2500.

Visited by OS(WJ) 3 March 1964 and (DWR) 11 September 1972

Visible on vertical air photograph (OS 71/396/141, flown 1971).

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), April 1991.