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Rait Castle
Cropmark(S) (Prehistoric), Earthwork (Prehistoric)
Site Name Rait Castle
Classification Cropmark(S) (Prehistoric), Earthwork (Prehistoric)
Canmore ID 15184
Site Number NH85SE 3
NGR NH 89286 53012
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/15184
- Council Highland
- Parish Nairn
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Nairn
- Former County Nairn
NH85SE 3 8925 5296
(Approx NH 894 527) Crop-mark possible palisaded site.
OS 6" map, annotated by A L F Rivet, Assistent Archaeol officer, 18 January 1963; Visible on RAF air photographs CPE/Scot/UK/ 254: 3180-1.
NH 894 528. This is the same site as the crop-mark of the 'Earthwork, Raitcastle' noted by the RCAHMS in the Marginal Lands survey of 1956-8. It has not been planned.
(Undated) information in NMRS.
NH 8925 5296. There is nothing to be seen at the site of the crop-mark and no finds have been made. The oval mark, measuring aproximately 50.0m by 40.0m, encloses the relatively flat top of a natural hillock, and could be the site of a published enclosure.
Visited by OS (NKB) 19 November 1965.
Hillock cultivated. No trace of cropmark.
Visited by OS (RL) 10 December 1970.
(Further photographs taken in 1979).
Visible on RCAHMS air photographs N 316-17: flown 1979.
(Undated) information in NMRS.
Scheduled as 'Rait Castle, enclosure 320m NE of... a bivallate, roughly circular enclosure... in arable land... 60m above sea level.'
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 15 October 2007.
Reference (1963)
This site is noted in the ‘List of monuments discovered during the survey of marginal land (1956-8)’, published in Vol. 1 of the RCAHMS Inventory of Stirlingshire. The 26 monuments were listed by their name, classification, parish and county, and the list also includes an indication of whether they had been planned (P), whether they were visible only as a cropmark (C), and whether they were worthy of preservation (*).
Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 30 October 2012.
Field Visit (May 1978)
Raitcastle NH 892 529 NH85SE 3
Crop-markings 250m ENE of Raitcastle indicate that this earthwork was enclosed by two ditches interrupted on the E, possibly for an entrance. Visible on RCAHMS AP 1976, 1977.
RCAHMS 1978, visited May 1978
Note (23 March 2015 - 31 May 2016)
Parchmarks in a field of improved pasture have revealed a double-ditched earthwork enclosing a flat-topped knoll. Roughly circular on plan, it measures about 35m in diameter (0.09ha) within two ditches about 3m broad and set some 6m apart. Its interior would be considerably smaller with an internal upcast rampart, perhaps measuring no more than 29m across (0.06ha). The interior is featureless and the entrance through the inner ditch is on the E. There is no corresponding gap in the outer ditch at this point, however, though there is a slight angle in its alignment before it turns outwards to form the S side of a much broader gap on the ENE. While this may indicate a complex arrangement of the defences at the entrance, with a staggered approach that would have exposed the right-hand side of the approaching visitor, it might equally imply that the two ditches are not contemporary, the outer belonging to a free-standing enclosure measuring about 45m across internally (0.16ha).
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 31 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2909
