Archaeology Notes

Event ID 729492

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/729492

NX86NW 4 8090 6595.

(NX 8090 6595) Earthwork (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

This earthwork occupies a strong natural position in the NW angle of a steep-sided plateau some 60' high on the left bank of the Urr Water. It has been formed by drawing two curving ramparts, each with an external ditch, across the top of the plateau, thereby cutting off a flat irregularly-shaped area, 120' N-S and also E-W.

The two ramparts are only parallel for half the distance and increasingly diverge from one another as they approach the N edge of the plateau, but it does not necessarily follow from this that they are of different dates. The level triangular space between the inner ditch and outer rampart which results from this divergence may have been deliberately provided to serve the site for a watch-tower or guard-chamber commanding the entrance passage described below.

Both ramparts have been heavily reduced by former cultivation and in the absence of excavation nothing can be said about their dimensions or nature of their construction. The inner one, which may originally have continued along the N and W margins of the plateau, is now only traceable in the SE, while the outer rampart, still visible for its entire length, is nowhere over 2' high. Both the ditches, however, have clearly been of substantial size, each having an effective width of from 30 - 40'.

The original entrance is presumably represented by the modern track which runs along the N edge of the plateau, skirting the open ends of the defences, and enters the interior of the earthwork at the NW corner. The impression given by the remains is that the work is medieval rather than prehistoric.

RCAHMS typescript 3 October 1952

Earthwork, as described by RCAHMS except that the outer 'ditch' is simply the result of ploughing.

Revised at 25".

Visited by OS (WDJ) 9 July 1963.