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Cargill

Roman Fort (Roman), Axehead (Bronze Age)

Site Name Cargill

Classification Roman Fort (Roman), Axehead (Bronze Age)

Alternative Name(s) Cargill 2; Hatton; River Isla

Canmore ID 28493

Site Number NO13NE 27

NGR NO 1661 3790

NGR Description Centred NO 1661 3790

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/28493

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Perth And Kinross
  • Parish Cargill
  • Former Region Tayside
  • Former District Perth And Kinross
  • Former County Perthshire

Archaeology Notes

NO13NE 27 centred 1661 3790.

For possible unenclosed settlement within and adjacent to this fort, see NO13NE 72 and NO13NE 74.

NO 166 380. Crop marks of irregular enclosures taken by J K St Joseph.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

Activities

Field Visit (19 February 1969)

None of these cropmarks is visible on the ground. They lie in a very undulating field with a general slope towards the River Isla.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 19 February 1969.

Aerial Photographic Interpretation (5 August 1977)

NO 166 379. There is a Roman fort, of about 3 acres, at Cargill; it lies about 250 yds E of the fortlet (NO13NE 26).

Information from J K St Joseph 5 August 1977

Excavation (1981)

Flavian fort of c.2 ha. Exploratory excavation in 1981.

G S Maxwell and D R Wilson 1987

Note (9 December 1992)

Situated about 500m NW of Hatton farmhouse, on the left bank of the River Isla, there are the almost totally denuded remains of a Roman fort and its annexe. Tentatively identified from the air by Eric Bradley in 1941, it was not recorded again until 1977, when cropmarks revealed much of the defensive perimeter of the fort, as well as the triple ditches defining the NE side of the annexe, which extends NW to the very bank of the river.

Facing NW towards the presumed river-crossing, the fort measured about 170m by 120m over a turf-and-earth rampart originally measuring about 6m thick. It was further defended, on the NE and SE, by three ditches measuring up to 4.5m in breadth, but on the SW only double ditches have been recorded; at the NE and SW entrances (the portae principales) the outer ditch curves inward to unite with the inner in a 'parrot's beak' of typical Flavian form. There were apparently no ditches separating the annexe from the NW front of the fort (an indication that the former was not a secondary addition), and there appears to have been an entrance to the annexe on the SE, where the triple ditches of the NE side stop 6m short of the N angle of the fort.

Exploratory excavation in 1980 and 1981 confirmed the evidence of the cropmarks on the NE front of the fort and identified timber buildings (one of them a granary) in the interior; two structural phases were recognised in these buildings and at least three in a limited examination of the relationship between the annexe and the NW rampart. Few datable artefacts were recovered during excavation, but an assemblage of samian ware later discovered by chance near the SW gate pointed to abandonment of the site not long after AD 85.

Information from RCAHMS (JRS) 9 December 1992.

G S Maxwell and D R Wilson 1987; G S Maxwell 1989.

Geophysical Survey (2005)

Roman fort NO 166 379 A geophysical survey and fieldwalking programme were carried out on the larger of the two Roman forts at Cargill. The geophysical work added to the data already obtained from air photography. It showed that the triple ditch system known on the NE side continued around the SE side, and suggested that the ditches united into one at the northern corner so that a single ditch separated the fort from its annexe, which was itself triple-ditched.

More importantly, perhaps, a roundhouse and what appears to be a souterrain were detected just inside the NW gate of the fort, close to that already known from aerial photography in the annexe.

Sponsor: Roman Gask Project.

D Woolliscroft 2005

Field Walking (2005)

The fieldwalking produced a number of Roman objects, notably 14 coins. Many of these were as might be expected of a fort which is assumed to have been occupied in the Flavian period alone, notably six of Vespasian (three dating to AD 71) and two of Domitian, along with earlier coins of Augustus and Mark Anthony. There were, however, two coins of Hadrian and one of Trajan (which might hint at Antonine activity), along with two 3rd-century radiate copies.

Sponsor: Roman Gask Project.

D Woolliscroft 2005.

NO 166 379 The report of fieldwalking finds recovered from the surroundings of the Roman fort of Cargill in 2005 omitted to mention the discovery of an early Bronze Age axehead in good condition.

Sponsor: The Roman Gask Project.

D J Woolliscroft, 2006.

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