Field Visit
Date March 2014
Event ID 995962
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/995962
This fort is situated 280m E of South Dumbuils farmsteading on a craggy volcanic knoll that rises gently from the N to a very steep S face that falls some 15m to the farmland below. Roughly oval on plan but wider at its W end, the fort measures 140m from E to W by up to 70m transversely within a wall that has been reduced to a grass-grown bank measuring a maximum of 9m in thickness and 0.8m in internal height on the NNW. Elsewhere, this wall is marked by little more than an outward facing scarp and along the straight southern side there are places where it is not visible at all. A second and a third (outermost) bank are visible on the N, but mainly as scarps, and these tail off around the E and W ends of the knoll where they have been disturbed by later tracks that ascend towards the interior. The only original entrance that can be positively identified is situated on the NW, where there is a well-defined hollow passing through the defences and into the interior.
Within the fort the naturally uneven surface has been disturbed by small-scale quarrying (which is also evident elsewhere on and around the knoll) but there are several locations where scarps may represent the remains of circular prehistoric timber buildings. One especially, in the SE corner, appears to have both an outer (rear) scarp and an inner scarp of smaller diameter; another, half way along the southern side, if it is not actually a quarry, would represent a post-defensive occupation of the knoll as it overlies the line of the fort wall. A series of subrectangular platforms at the E end may represent later occupation of the knoll.
In 2010, a topographic survey and excavation of one trench and two test-pits were undertaken (Poller 2010).
Visited by RCAHMS (GFG, JRS, IP) April 2014.
