Archaeology Notes

Event ID 709691

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/709691

NT13SW 22 1395 3410

(NT 1395 3410) Fort (NR)

OS 6" map, (1967).

This fort which occupies a ridge cut off from Vane Law by a marginal meltwater channel, measures internally 800ft by 235ft and has been defended by a single stone wall 10ft in thickness. On the W side the wall now appears as a band of tumbled debris from which numerous outer facing stones and one short stretch of the inner face protrude, but elsewhere the faces and the core have either been removed or have fallen down the flanks of the ridge. The entrance, situated in the middle of the W side, is 10ft in width and leads into a hollow measuring 40ft in length by 25ft in width. Another gap in the wall, at the NNE end, may have been broken through comparatively recently, when the NE part of the fort was under cultivation.

Within the interior, which measures 3 1/2 acres in extent, the surface traces of at least twenty-eight house- platforms can be discerned, while a good many more may originally have existed in the ploughed NE portion. A few of the platforms are accompanied by shallow grooves, indicating that the houses were of ring-groove type.

A modern sheepfold overlies the SSW end of the fort.

D Christison 1887; RCAHMS 1967, visited 1956.

Generally as described. Only fifteen house platforms can be identified.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (IA) 16 August 1972.

The fort is visible on vertical aerial photographs (OS 71/395/015 and 031, flown 1971).

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), April 1995.