Archaeology Notes

Event ID 723628

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/723628

NX13SW 16 1417 3101 to 1426 3104.

(Centred: NX 1422 3103) Earthwork (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

This earthwork consists of a single rampart (or wall) without any apparent ditch. E of the road, where it is best preserved, it takes the form of a natural ridge which has been steeply scarped on the N side and capped with a mound or wall. The maximum height of the scarp is 11'6". In a sheep-rub near the top of the outer face, there is a single line of boulders, each c. 1' long, lying horizontally and embedded in rock rubble, which may be the remains of a wall. Otherwise, the work is turf- covered and shows no signs of facings.

W of the road, the rampart underlies a dyke and is at most 3' high. The outer face is well-defined on the N side of the dyke but the inner one is vague due to later disturbance. The two low parallel mounds some 9' distant, passing down the slope towards the shore, seem to be connected with the earthwork, but are probably nothing more than upcast mounds from a drainage ditch coming from the lowest part of a cultivated field. The earthwork should have finished a short distance E of this drain, on the actual neck of the isthmus, but of this there is now no sign.

It is very doubtful whether this earthwork is defensive or of any great antiquity. It is easily out-flanked and of modest size, though it has been made slightly more formidable E of the road by basing it on a natural ridge (see also NX13SW 17).

RCAHMS TS 29 June 1955

As described. A probable 18th - 19th century field wall. Not an antiquity.

Revised at 25".

Visited by OS (RD) 9 February 1972

The remains of this boundary work cut across the neck of the Mull of Galloway immediately S of the enclosed fields of Mull farm. To the W of the road it has been reduced to little more than a low swelling beneath the field-dyke, and measures a maximum of 2.8m in thickness by 0.5m in height. To the E of the road it runs along the crest of a prominent natural ridge. At one point a number of large boulders which appear to be the remains of a face, have been exposed; here the bank is 2.3m thick and 0.5m high. The N face of the ridge presents a steep scarp up to 3.5m high which may have been deliberately constructed. The date of the work is unknown.

RCAHMS 1985, visited (SH) July 1984; NMRS SAS 456, 457