Field Visit
Date 14 June 2013
Event ID 980776
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/980776
This fort stands on a spur on the E flank of Castle Law overlooking the village of Abernethy 1km to the NE, with steep slopes on all sides bar the W, from which direction the site is most easily approached. The fort comprises a roughly oval area, measuring about 42m from NE to SW by 18m transversely, within a ruinous timber-laced stone wall. At the SW end it appears to survive almost as intact as when it was first revealed by excavation in the late 1890s (Christison and Anderson 1899). Here, the wall is up to 6m thick and stands to an external height of 2.4m, and although there has been subsequent erosion to the exposed outer wall-face (in which the empty sockets of horizontal timbers were visible), the bulk of the wall appears to survive relatively intact. Elsewhere, however, this wall has been heavily robbed, reducing its appearance to little more than a low spread of rubble punctuated by quarry-scoops. A second wall, also found on excavation to be timber-laced and which stands outside the first at the W end, seems also to have survived well since the excavation which exposed its inner face. It measures 4.5m in thickness at its SE end (where the relationship with the inner wall is not clear) but is of indeterminate thickness at its NW end, where it is situated on the crest of a steep slope. Most of the debris filling the gap between the two walls was removed in the 1890s, but a small tump of unexcavated material standing 2m high remains. The spoil from this part of the excavation was deposited immediately to the N, resulting in a large heap of stone debris that runs down the slope as far as the waterlogged ground at the bottom. The possible door jambs noted by Christison and Anderson were not seen on the date of visit.
The only features of note within the interior of the fort, other than the cistern or the well mentioned in previous accounts, are several excavation trenches which are undated but may represent work undertaken by two local men – Alexander Mackie and James Marr between 1895 and 1897. At the centre of the fort, on the highest part of the spur, there is a low cairn-like feature measuring 4m from N to S by 3m transversely and no more than 0.3m in height. Given its location, it may be a stance for a 19th century survey station.
To the NW of and situated on a terrace below the fort are two areas which were respectively labelled ‘Loch’ and ‘Marsh’ by Christison and Anderson (Ibid, Fig.2). The ‘Loch’, which is actually little more than a shallow pond, is a man-made feature formed by damming a shallow gully that naturally drains to the NE. It measures about 47m from NE to SW by 26m transversely behind an earthen bank 33m in length by up to 11m in thickness and 1.2m in external height and probably no more than 1m internally. A narrow break through the top of this bank 12m from the NW end represents either the remains of a contemporary sluice or a later drain. The exact purpose and date of this pond is not known. It cannot be a mill pond because there is no recorded mill nearby and the outflow could only have descended the impractically steep N slope of the hill. It may be a curling pond, but the location is comparatively remote and would have proved difficult to access in winter conditions. The fabric of the dam might have been expected to include stone from the ruined fort, which it does not, but the builders may always have intended to construct the dam with material gained from the creation of the pond. If this was the case, then it should be no surprise to find that the dam appears to comprise a largely earthen bank, something that may explain the extraordinary thickness in relation to its height.
The ‘Marsh’ is a comparatively small, roughly triangular, area of steeply sloping ground defined on the S by the natural slope below the fort, on the W by the dam and on the NE by a bank measuring about 45m in length by up to 8m in thickness and now no more than 0.8m in height. The NW end of this bank, which appears to have little stone content, terminates on a low outcrop ridge immediately NE of the NW end of the dam. The SE end is lost beneath the scree slope below the fort. The term ‘Marsh’ is a misnomer and probably arose from the fact that water running out of the ‘Loch’ has tended to pool in the bottom (NW) end of the area. A break in the bank close to the NW end probably represents an attempt to drain the resulting waterlogged ground. The exact purpose and date of this bank, nor its relationship either to the fort or the pond, is not known. Further, it is difficult to imagine the context of the bank in relation to the fort. Whilst its SE end, now masked below scree, may have originally climbed to slope to link with the E end of the fort, the NW end of the bank simply terminates on a low outcrop ridge.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, IP GG), 14 June 2013.
