Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Tom A' Chaisteil
Fort (Period Unassigned), Hut (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Tom A' Chaisteil
Classification Fort (Period Unassigned), Hut (Period Unassigned)
Canmore ID 15419
Site Number NH92NE 2
NGR NH 99615 28712
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/15419
- Council Highland
- Parish Cromdale, Inverallan And Advie
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Badenoch And Strathspey
- Former County Morayshire
NH92NE 2 9960 2872.
(NH 9960 2872) Tom a' Chaisteil (NR) (Remains of Fort) (NAT)
OS 6"map, Morayshire, 2nd ed., (1906)
Occupying the summit of Tom a' Chaisteil, a rocky spur, is a fort, sub-circular on plan, measuring c. 33.0m NNE-SSW by c. 31.0m, within a tumbled wall, most of which in the E has fallen over the cliffs of the spur. Occasional outer facing stones can be seen but no inner face, so that the thickness of the wall cannot be determined, although the width of tumble suggests that it may have been about 3.0m. The entrance was probably in the W where a gap has been blocked by a later wall, but no details survive. The interior is featureless. Some eight to ten metres to the N of the fort is a trench c. 2.0m wide and c. 0.6m deep, extending 35.0m W from the cliff. It is presumably associated with the fort, the most likely explanation being that it is part of an unfinished outer defence. On the W side, below the wall, is a recent shelter.
Visited by OS (R L) 16 September 1969.
This fort is generally as described by the Ordnance Survey. The recent shelter below the W side was not seen on the date of visit, but there is a small hut 155m SSW of the fort, built against the rear of a heather-grown terrace. Subrectangular on plan, it measures 7.6m by 4.3m, over rubble walls 0.7m high and 0.6m thick, with an entrance on the E.
Visited by RCAHMS (AGCH) 10 October 2006.
Field Visit (27 September 1943)
This site was included within the RCAHMS Emergency Survey (1942-3), an unpublished rescue project. Site descriptions, organised by county, vary from short notes to lengthy and full descriptions and are available to view online with contemporary sketches and photographs. The original typescripts, manuscripts, notebooks and photographs can also be consulted in the RCAHMS Search Room.
Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 10 December 2014.
Note (25 March 2015 - 31 May 2016)
This small fortification is situated on a rocky boss that rises out of the NE flank of Beinn Mhor to dominate the upper end of Glenbeg. Linked to the flank of the hill by a col some 7m below the summit, elsewhere the ground falls away steeply, on the ENE quickly terminating in a cliff some 10m high. Sub-circular on plan, it measures about 30m in diameter (0.08ha) within a wall reduced to a mound of rubble spread some 6m in thickness where best preserved on the NW. A few outer facing-stones are visible and the entrance is probably on the W, where there is a gap blocked by a modern length of wall. A ditch some 2m broad and 0.6m deep can be seen swinging round the N quarter some 8m outside the wall, though whether it is an unfinished defence as suggested by the OS is unknown. The uneven interior, which drops quite steeply towards the ENE, is featureless, though the RCAHMS investigators who visited in 1943 suggested that the face of a ridge of outcrop that extends across the S part may have been quarried, possibly to provide stone for the wall; they also suggested an external rock-face on the WSW had also been quarried but did not note a modern shelter that the OS identified at its foot.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 31 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2914
