Publication Account

Date 17 December 2011

Event ID 921568

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/921568

The camp at Carey, near Abernethy, was first recorded from the air by St Joseph in 1971 (1973: 219–20). It lies on a level terrace immediately south of the River Earn, close to where it meets the River Tay. The fortress and camps at Carpow lie some 3km to the ENE. The embankment for the railway line from Perth to Ladybank cuts through the northern part of the camp, and the Carey Stank, a small burn now canalised, also cuts across it.

Parts of all four sides of the camp have been recorded as cropmarks. It is rhomboid in shape, measuring some 670m from WSW to ENE by around 663m transversely, enclosing 44.6ha (110 acres). A change of direction in the ENE side close to where the railway line crosses probably indicates the position of an entrance gap, and there are two entrance gaps in the SSE side, protected by tituli; it probably had six in total. St Joseph placed trenches through the NNW, ENE and SSE sides in 1971 and 1972, recording that the ditch was 1.1m deep and 2.3m wide on the NN W side, but only 0.8m deep and 1.5m wide on the SSE side (RCA HMS St Joseph Collection: Notebook 6). A small fragment of samian was found in the ditch on the SSE side, identified as south Gaulish and probably late 1st century (St Joseph 1973: 220). More recent attempts to locate this sherd have proved unsuccessful (Dunwell and Keppie 1995: 60n).

Owing to its size and morphology, the camp is regularly compared with the camp at Dunning, some 15km to the west (St Joseph 1973: 218–20).

R H Jones