Field Visit

Date 30 June 1954

Event ID 926210

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/926210

RCAHMS Marginal Land Survey

Forts and Homesteads, Kidlaw.

On the summit of a hill at the NW end of a spur of the Lammermuirs, about 300 yds E of Kidlaw steading, there is an important group of remains belonging to two successive native forts and three homesteads which are later in date than the forts . Since the remains of the earlier fort were not observed when the site was surveyed for the Inventory of East Lothian (No.259), and the fact that the later fort and the homesteads represent two distinct occupational periods is not recognized in the description which accompanies that survey, it has been thought advisable to publish a revised account illustrated by a new plan.

Fort I

The earliest structures now visible on the site are two parallel ramparts (IA-B), about 150 ft. in length and from 13 ft to 23 ft. apart, which run in an arc from NNW. to SSE. across the interior of the later fortifications. Both these ramparts are in a wasted condition, being reduced to mere terraces whose scarps are not more than 2 ft in height; the stony nature of the scarps and of the terraces behind them suggests, however , that the ramparts were not simply earthworks but were kerbed or revetted with dry-walling. The shape and size of the fort whose W defences were formed by these rampart s is conjectural since the rest of the circuit has been engulfed or obliterated by the later defences. But from the lie of the ground it is reasonable to assume that the inner rampart of the later fort (IIA), which is drawn round the shoulder of the hill , has adopted the same line as that which was formerly chosen for the E. half of the inner rampart of the earlier structure . If this is so, Fort 1 will have been roughly oval on plan with maximum internal dimensions of some 300 ft. from N to S by 200 ft from E to W.

Fort II

The second fort is a larger and more substantial structure, nearly circular on plan and with a mean internal diameter of 350 ft. Except on the NE half of the perimeter, where a ditch and rampart have presumably been levelled by cultivation, t he defences comprise triple ramparts (IIA-C) with ditches between them. The short segment of a fourth rampart (IID) which is interpolated between the inner pair on the SE arc, and which mars the symmetry of the design is most easily explained as a relic of the old fortifications which has been incorporated in the new system. All the ramparts appear to be of ‘dump’-construction, and possess steep scarps up to 7 ft in height; the thin ruined stone wall that crowns the inner rampart (IIA) for the greater part of the circuit clearly dates to the succeeding 'homestead' phase of occupation, and a fragment of a similar wall that overlies the W end of rampart IID may well belong to the same phase. The entrance mentioned in the Inventory article on the SSE side of the f ort is not an original feature, but that on the WSW is certainly original, as may well be the entrance on the opposite, ENE, side. No signs of internal buildings attributable to this, or to the preceding, fort can now be seen.

Homesteads

A third, more peaceful, phase in the history of the site is represented by the foundations of three small stone-walled homesteads (IlIA-C ) situated at different points within the interior of the later fort . All three structures are evidently contemporary since they are similar on plan, while two of them are linked by the boundary wall which, as already stated is based on the ruined inner rampart IIA: each consists of round stone huts, ranging from 10 ft to 25 ft in diameter, opening on t o a small walled courtyard.

Conclusions

The remains described above are of exceptional interest since the homesteads, which provide a terminus ante quem for the dates of construction and occupation of the two forts, are of a familiar type which was widespread throughout SE Scotland and Northumberland between the 2nd and 7th centuries AD. It follows therefore that not only the second fort at Kidlaw, but also the other circular, multivallate forts of this class, which are widely distributed throughout Berwickshire and the Lothians, but which do not appear in the adjacent counties of Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire, are to be assigned to the Early Iron Age. Furthermore, it is evident that whereas forts of this type represent, as might be expected, an advanced stage in the technique of fortification as practised in the Early Iron Age, the forts which they superseded were not necessarily univallate structures.

512642, xv SW

Visited by RCAHMS (KAS) 30 June 1954.