Woodhead

NO13SW 11 1437 3464.

(NO 1437 3464) Crop marks, ring ditch by Woodhead Farm.

The site of this earthwork or enclosure is a very slight mound on high ground. There is a clear view on all sides but the east, where the ground continues to rise.

Surveyed at 25" from ground control and AP.

Visited by OS (EGC) 4 March 1969.

An aerial transcription was produced from oblique aerial photographs. Information from Historic Environment Scotland (BM) 31 March 2017.

The cropmark of what appears to be double-ditched enclosure is visible on air photographs about 280m NW of Woodhead Cottage. The narrow inner ring measures about 16m in internal diameter, and the rather indefinite outer ring (which is about 1.5m wide) some 25m.

Information from RCAHMS (JRS) 10 December 1992.

NO 1433 3463 Resistance and magnetic surveys were conducted on a double-ditched enclosure which lay close to the line of a possible Roman road marked on Knox's map of Perthshire of 1850, N of the Tay, between the forts of Bertha and Cargill. The site was found from the air and looked like a double-ditched Roman tower. It also had a spectacular field of view taking in the Roman sites of Inchtuthil and Black Hill, along with a c 20km stretch of the Highland fringe. Only part of the ditch circuit has ever shown up, however, and as this did not contain the usual entrance break its identity was far from certain. The survey showed the site's dimensions to be identical to those of the double ditched towers at the S end of the Roman Gask system, further to the S. They also revealed breaks in both ditches, facing towards the N, but these were a little narrower than those on the Gask (2m as opposed to c 3.5m) and only excavation will show with certainty whether the site is Roman or not.

Sponsor: The Roman Gask Project.

D J Woolliscroft and B Hoffman 2006

NO 1433 3463 Resistance and magnetic surveys.

Sponsor: The Roman Gask Project.

D J Woolliscroft and B Hoffman 2006

NO 1433 3463 Resistance and magnetic surveys.

Sponsor: The Roman Gask Project.

D J Woolliscroft and B Hoffman 2006

NO 144 347 The site has been known from the air since at

least the 1960s and recorded simply as ‘enclosure’: it being

just a larger ring feature sitting amongst what looked to be

a small group of roundhouses. Recent air photography has,

however, shown it to have a double ditched, slightly subcircular

form very like that of the southernmost four towers

of the Roman Gask system to the S. The site has a spectacular

field of view, especially over the arc from SW to N, which

takes in the Roman sites of Inchtuthil and Black Hill, and it

seemed possible that it might represent a Roman watchtower

well to the N of the Tay where the Gask line is currently

thought to stop.

A geophysical survey in 2010 confirmed the basic

morphology and showed that the site’s ditch diameters were

comparable with the Gask towers. Excavation then found a

double ‘V’ sectioned ditch, with a single entrance oriented

to the NW, almost exactly towards the Dunkeld gap, which

is in full view at a distance of c14 km. The internal area

held a timber structure founded on four large postholes, all of

which is again, fully compatible with a Roman timber tower

and, although no stratified datable artefacts were recovered,

there seems little reason to doubt the identification.

Archive: The Roman Gask Project

Funder: Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust

An interpretative transcription, or mapping, of information on oblique aerial photographs was produced on 3 December 2021.