Field Visit
Date 17 July 1957
Event ID 919989
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/919989
Fort, Knockargety Hill.
This fort is situated at a height of 850 feet OD 400 yards north of Upper Ruthven farmhouse on the broad rounded summit of an isolated hill. At the date of visit the hill was included in the conifer plantation of Knockargety Wood and although it was comparitively clear of scrub the surface of the ground was clothed with long grass, blueberry bushes and patches of heather. The fort is a regular oval on plan measuring about 800 feet from east to west by about 390 feet transversely; it is defined by a line which consists in part of a ditch and in part of s scarp. The east and west arcs, which run across the summit ridge, appear as ditches up to one foot in depth at the west and 3 feet at the east. Causeways 15 feet in width cross both these stretches of ditch, and for a short distance on either side of them stretches of low stone banks run along the inner lips of the ditches. As the defences are followed south from the entrances the banks soon die out and the ditches fade more gradually until the whole of the central portion of the south stretch is formed only by a scarp, a continuation of te inner scarp of the ditch with a terrace at its foot. Likewise, the north stretch of the ditch is formed partly by short stretches of ditch and partly by lengths of scarp; at several places fragmentary low mounds are visible on the outside of the excavations forming the north sector.
The degree of slope of the north and south flanks of the hill are not enough to support the suggestion that a once complete inner mound could have rolled away down them and left so few traces; nor are they so steep as to disallow the digging of a ditch and the construction of a rampart along their contours. The state of the remains is explained, therefore, as representing an incomplete state of work. The ditch and scarp, the former mostly very shallow, may thus represent an early stage in the construction of a quarry from which material for a rampart could be obtained. As both became deeper so the rampart would grow, but only at a point north of the east entrance is any part of the ditch as yet as deep as 3 feet. As has been noted elsewhere (of Dunideer [NJ62NW 1]) work appears to have started on a second phase of construction in the vicinity of the entrances. No sign of other defensive lines could be seen, but it is possible that a marker trench might exist among the trees and coarse pasture either within or outside the existing remains. No support could be found for Ogston’s suggestion that boulders inside the defences formed an inner ring (1931, 102).
Visited by RCAHMS (RWF) 17 July 1957.
