Archaeology Notes

Event ID 718413

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/718413

NT56NE 2 58000 66180

(NT 5800 6618) Black Castle (NAT) Fort (NR)

OS 25" map (1967)

Black Castle. This fort is situated at 900ft OD, on the summit of a hillock, just inside the SE end of a plantation, Black Castle Woods. It is almost circular on plan, measuring about 380ft by 340ft within two ramparts with a median ditch. The inner rampart is imposing, spread to a thickness of 20ft and standing to as much as 10ft above the bottom of the ditch. It is topped with the remains of what may be a contemporary wall. The outer rampart is slighter than the inner. Entrances in the W and S arcs are clearly marked by causeways in the ditch, even if tumbled stones may appear to block them. The RCAHMS note that immediately SE of the quarry, within the fort, there is an oval depression, apparently surrounded by a stone wall, measuring 45ft from E to W by 30ft transversely.

RCAHMS 1924, visited 1913; R W Feachem 1963

This fort is generally as described by the previous authorities. The RCAHMS plan is inaccurate as there are only two ramparts (as stated in the text) and not three. Nothing is visible in the interior, and the oval depression mentioned by the RCAHMS is not a stone-walled hut.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (JTT) 16 September 1965