Archaeology Notes

Event ID 710433

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/710433

NT14SW 8 1245 4335.

(NT 1245 4335) Fort (NR)

OS 6" map (1968)

On an isolated knoll there is a fort measuring internally 270' by 100'. The margin of the summit-area of the knoll has been quarried to provide material for a wall (A) which, though it may originally have measured some 10' in thickness, now appears at best only as a stony bank from which a few facing-stones protrude. There are two entrances, each 5' wide, at the NE and SW ends respectively. The interior contains four house-platforms (numbered 1-4 on the plan), the best preserved (2) measuring 18' across.

Traces of a second line of defence occur in the form of scarps (B), about 3' 6" in height, which lie on the NE and SW flanks of the knoll at distances varying from 10' to 30' outside wall A. The scarp on the N side of the NE entrance is accompanied by a shallow external quarry- ditch, the line of which is continued across the NW flank of the knoll in the form of a very slight terrace. The insignificant nature of the scarps and terrace may imply that the defensive scheme of which they formed part was not completed. What is unquestionably an unfinished ditch (C), however, lies at the S foot of the knoll. Four detached stretches presumably represent an early stage in the construction of an obstacle to bar approach to the fort from the adjacent rising ground. (Information from R W Feachem notebook 1959, 113)

RCAHMS 1967, visited 1959

This fort is as described.

Visited by OS (SFS) 5 November 1974