Archaeology Notes

Event ID 729666

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/729666

NY38NE 8 37314 87153

(NY 3730 8715) Earthwork (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

Enclosure, Tarrona: This elliptical enclosure, which is comparable with the ones at Parson's Rig (NY39SE 14) and Brieryshaw Hill (NY39SE 10), measures 230ft by 193ft within a stone wall originally some 6ft thick, with entrance on the W. The interior has been scarped on the upper side. The assumption in the Inventory (RCAHMS 1920) that the ground outside has been scarped for defensive purposes is erroneous, the scarp on the W and N sides being the result of ploughing round tha base of the wall. The site could hardly be in a less defensive position and is plainly visible from the floor of the valley. Former cultivation has destroyed any internal features. The true stature of the perimeter is in doubt and the use of the interior uncertain.

Though a medieval tripod vessel has come from the ditch (A E Truckell, Dumfries Museum), this need not have a bearing on the original context of this, or similar enclosures.

G Jobey 1971; RCAHMS Marginal Lands Survey TS., visited 1955

Generally as described above, this settlement lies in arable ground on a SW-facing slope. It abuts a natural gully in the SE. The stone wall is particularly evident in the N but in the W, traces of walling are scant and here the perimeter consists of what appears to be an enhanced natural slope. The enclosure has been breached in four places in the N and E. While three of these gaps are clearly mutilations, one, in the extreme N, is possibly a subsidiary entrance contemporary with the settlement. No outer ditch is visible.

Surveyed at 1/10,000.

Visited by OS (JB) 4 October 1979.

Scheduled as 'Terrona, scooped settlement 150m SE of...'

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 16 March 2010.