Archaeology Notes

Event ID 717846

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/717846

NT56SW 6 54650 63090.

(NT 5465 6309) Vitrified Fort (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

This substantial fort occupies the rocky summit of a spur on Harelaw, at 1250' OD. The summit area is bordered by the massive ruins of a timber-laced stone wall about 12' thick, which has been severely mutilated in the N by stone-robbing to provide material for the modern wall, some 4' thick at the base, which misleadingly encircles the summit. It is probable that the interior originally measured about 200' by 100'. The remains of outworks survive on the NW and SE, and especially on the SW, where the only easy approach to the fort can be made. Here two ramparts with external ditches cut off all access, and allow only a narrow pathway to extend from the hillside to the entrance of the fort, on the W.

R W Feachem 1963; RCAHMS 1924

This fort is generally as described.

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 21 September 1965 and (SFS) 15 August 1975

No change to previous reports. Vitrified material was found at all three points indicated by the RCAHMS (plan) particularly at the NE end of the tumbled wall.

Visited by OS (JRL) 15 June 1979

The passage entrance to this fort appears to have been constructed at the end of its occupation, possibly in the post-Roman period.

L R Laing 1975.