Publication Account
Date 17 December 2011
Event ID 921567
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/921567
The camp at Cardean was discovered from the air by St Joseph in the early 1950s (St Joseph 1955: 87), just to the east of the Flavian fort. Both fort and camp lie on a triangular plateau east of the confluence of the River Isla and the Dean Water. The village of Meigle lies just over 1km to the south-west.
The camp lies on ground that slopes gently to the north, with a road running along its northern perimeter. It is orientated from south-west to north-east, with the whole of the south-west side, two rounded corners and parts of the south-east and north-west sides visible as cropmarks on air photographs. Part of the south-east side survives as an upstanding earthwork in Crow Wood, accentuated by a drainage ditch. However, there are several large drainage ditches cutting through the wood, and another drainage ditch had been mistaken for the camp in the past as a result of the south corner being assumed to lie in the field north of the western spur of the Wood (Ordnance Survey NO24NE , published 1977, from information supplied by St Joseph). St Joseph recorded that two small trenches on the south-east side in the east part of Crow Wood did not find the ditch, and he proposed that this was therefore the position of an entrance (1973: 224). The east part of the south-east side lies in a field of linear cropmarks (presumably for drainage), but can be discerned running up to the field boundary, and was confirmed in trenches by St Joseph (RCAHMS St Joseph Collection: Notebook 7). The north-east side is unclear, although there are faint traces of a linear cropmark on air photographs, and St Joseph also recorded it from the air and through trial trenches (1955: 87; 1973: 224; RCAHMS St Joseph Collection: Notebook 7). He plotted it running immediately east of the field 158 boundary (RCAHMS DC 37284) and excavated small trenches here in 1975 (RCAHMS St Joseph Collection: Notebook 7). This gives the camp overall dimensions of some 830m from north-east to south-west by around 650m transversely, enclosing 54ha (133 acres).
An entrance gap, protected by a titulus, is visible in the centre of the south-west side. On the south-east side, at the point where the drainage ditch stops and turns sharply to the south, there is a low mound, about 10m in length, 5.5m broad and a maximum of 0.4m high, which may represent the traces of a titulus.
Trenches by St Joseph recorded that the ditch of the camp was up to 3.6m wide and 1.75m deep. He also noted a possible second camp lying within this camp (Cardean II, see possible camps), with ditches recorded on the north-west and south-east sides.
R H Jones
