Archaeology Notes

Event ID 843805

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/843805

NJ82NW 4.00 8025 2570

NJ82NW 4.01 NJ 802 257 Pottery; Flint

For rig-and-furrow cultivation within and around the fort, see NJ82NW 119.

For finds in and around this fort see:

NJ82NW 5 Stone Macehead

NJ82NW 6 Carved Stone Ball

NJ82NW 7 Whorls

NJ82NW 8 Stone Ball

NJ82NW 9 Stone Axe

NJ82NW 10 Flint Arrowheads

NJ82NW 11 Flanged Bronze Axe

NJ82NW 22 Leaf-shaped Flint Arrowhead

NJ82NW 24 Stone Axe

NJ82NW 26 Stone Ball

NJ82NW 27 Stone Axes

NJ82NW 28 Carved Stone Ball

NJ82NW 59 Flints; Amber Fragment

NJ82NW 107 Wallace's Putting Stone

NJ82NW 108 Stone object; pottery

(NJ 8025 2570) Fort (NR)

OS 6" map, (1959)

The Barra Hill fort bears certain resemblances to the Barmekin of Echt (NJ70NW 1). The innermost line of defence is a ruined wall which encloses an area measuring 400ft in length by 320ft in width (350ft E to W by 320ft N to S [Meldrum 1959]), with a single entrance in the E. Two ramparts and ditches lying outside this are equipped with three entrances, two of which are still flanked with the remains of walls. The innermost wall is almost certainly a later structure than these outer two.

The interior has long been under the plough, the effects of which have also caused some damage to the N sector of the defences. It is featureless except for a huge erratic boulder which must have been placed on the hill in glacial times (Feachem 1963) (locally known as Wallace's Putting Stone).

Traditionally the encampment of the Comyns at the Battle of Old Meldrum (Meldrum 1959) (NJ72NE 4).

E Meldrum 1959; R Feachem 1963.

A fort generally as described by Feachem. The three entrances in the outer ramparts are on the N, E and W, although the one on the N may be a later mutilation. The medial rampart incorporates on the NW side, a stretch of steep rock outcrop, at the N end of which is a gap where the rampart merges with the third rampart. This gap appears to have been covered by a short stretch of additional rampart on the outside of the defences. The interior of the fort and the surrounding slopes are covered with rig and furrow.

Revised at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 3 March 1969.

(Location cited as NJ 8025 2570 and name as Barra Hillfort: nominated as Site of Regional Importance). This incomplete fort is situated on the summit of its hill at an altitude of 185m OD.

[Air photographic imagery listed].

NMRS, MS/712/35.

NJ 8031 2573 A flint end-scraper was also exposed by rabbit burrowing in the rampart of Barra hillfort.

W J Howard 2000.

Scheduled as 'Hill of Barra... the remains of a multi-vallate hillfort on the summit...

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 5 March 2009.