Archaeology Notes

Event ID 808114

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/808114

NT15NE 14 19280 59630.

(NT 1928 5963) Camp Hill (NAT) Fort (NR).

OS 6" map (1962)

This settlement (R W Feachem 1963), fort is oval in shape, 232' long internally by 175'.

Two structural phases are represented, firstly an all-timber settlement enclosed by a single palisade, accompanied by another palisade some 45' outside it, the two being joined at the entrances by connecting fences. In the second phase, these fences were replaced by two banks and ditches. The inner bank was piled up against the outer palisade, and as a result its quarry ditch lies inside it. The outer bank, likewise with an internal ditch, is almost ploughed away. Within the enclosure can be seen short sections of the original inner palisade, and more than a dozen ring-ditch houses. Some, perhaps almost all, of them belong to the later period, several of them overlying the earlier palisade.

The occupation period probably extended from the pre-Roman Iron Age to 1st-2nd century AD. As a result of excavations in 1947-8, a few IA finds were presented to National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS

Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1949) (listed by Stevenson), but no finds were made by the excavators in 1951-5. Another small excavation was carried out in 1968.

A gold torc was found by a workman digging in the fort c.1790. It has since been lost.

D Wilson 1863; RCAHMS 1929, visited 1913; R Stevenson 1951; S Piggott 1960; I Brown 1968.

As described.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 10 February 1970

Settlement, Braidwood: Photographed by the RCAHMS in 1980.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

There is a small area of rig to the SW of the settlement on a small low promontory. The rig runs down towards Eight Mile Burn cottages.

Visited by RCAHMS (DE) 18 September 1994.

This settlement is situated on the crest of Camp Hill, 500m N of Braidwood farm. The results of small scale excavations, combined with survey, have revealed a complex sequence of structures, elements of which included two circuits of palisades and a pair of ditches with a medial rampart. The trench of the inner palisade, which is still visible on the ground for much of its course, encloses an oval area measuring 55m by 35m; the outer palisade, which was later incorporated into the rampart, lay at a distance of about 13m beyond the inner. Both palisades were interrupted by an entrance on the SW, but this relationship does not necessarily indicate that they were contemporary. The rampart was composed of material derived from the accompanying ditches, and there are also traces of a counterscarp bank around the W half of the perimeter. The main entrance of the settlement in the earthwork phase was again on the SW, and excavation has shown that the outer palisade trench curved inwards on each side of the gap, to form an entrance passage some 9m in length; other gaps occur on the NW and SE. Within the interior there are traces of a least sixteen houses, mostly of ring-ditch type; detailed examination of the relationship of the houses to the inner palisade suggests that there were at least three phases of construction, since some houses appear to be earlier, and others later, than the palisade trench. Excavation of two examples in 1947 revealed rings of post-holes within the ring-ditches; the finds included some sherds of pottery, a small stone ball and a fragemnt of glass armlet (RMS, HH486-9; see also HH 470-2 and 494-5). In the late 18th century a penannular twisted gold torc of Iron Age type (now lost) was found within the earthwork.

Wilson 1863; RCAHMS 1929; Stevenson 1949; Piggott 1958; DES (1968); MacGregor 1976; Feachem 1977; Hill 1982; Reynolds 1982.