Mount Fleurie
Fort (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Mount Fleurie
Classification Fort (Period Unassigned)
Canmore ID 31330
Site Number NO30SE 17
NGR NO 35900 01379
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/31330
- Council Fife
- Parish Scoonie (Kirkcaldy)
- Former Region Fife
- Former District Kirkcaldy
- Former County Fife
NO30SE 17 35900 01379
The triple concentric ditches of a circular earthwork on a hummock are revealed on air photographs (CPE/Scot/UK305: 5230-1).
The diameter of the inner ditch is about 210 feet, of the medial ditch 270 feet, and of the outer ditch, which encircles the base of the hummock, 380 feet. There are no definite signs of entrance or of internal structures.
Information from A L F Rivet 24 September 1962
This small regular shaped hummock was located at NO 3590 0137 in an arable field. No traces of the triple cocentric ditches visible in air photo could be seen on the ground.
Visited by OS (WDJ) 17 October 1952
This site has now been almost wholly destroyed. It lies under the most westerly warehouse in the new industrial development.
Information from L Linge, IAM, 1 June 1983.
Aerial Photographic Interpretation (24 April 1951)
Earthwork, Banbeath (site).
The triple concentric ditches of a circular earthwork are revealed by crop-marks on National Survey air-photographs (CPE/SCOT/UK 305, 5230-1) in a cultivated field half a mile west of Banbeath farmhouse. The earthwork s situated on a round hummock, rising to a height of just over 100 ft OD, at the S end of a slight spur which projects into a belt of flat and formerly marshy ground. The inner ditch, which encloses the top of the hummock, is some 210 ft in diameter; the medial ditch 270 ft in diameter; and the outer ditch, which encircles the base of the hummock, is 380 ft in diameter. There are no definite signs of an entrance or of any internal structures.
359014
Xxviii NE (unnoted).
24 April 1951.
Reference (1957)
This site is noted in the ‘List of monuments discovered during the survey of marginal land (1951-5)’ (RCAHMS 1957, xiv-xviii).
Information from RCAHMS (GFG), 24 October 2012.
Note (19 June 2015 - 18 May 2016)
First noted in 1951, by RCAHMS on vertical aerial photographs, more detailed oblique coverage was recorded by CUCAP in 1968, but by 1983 the greater part of the site lay beneath an industrial development, and more recent construction may have destroyed any trace of the outer ditches that lay outside the development on the W. Situated on a hillock forming the S end of a low spur otherwise surrounded by boggy low-lying ground, the CUCAP photographs reveal a complex enclosure with five concentric ditches set in a belt 35m deep. The irregular spacing of the ditches, however, and indeed their different breadths, indicate that they probably represented several separate periods of construction. The innermost was thus relatively narrow, and not much more than 1m in breadth, enclosing an area some 40m in diameter (0.12ha), while the second was 4m in breadth, forming an enclosure 50m in internal diameter (0.2ha). The third was also relatively narrow, varying from 1m to 2.5m, but the fourth was 4m in breadth, and the fifth and outermost around the foot of the hillock 6m, forming a particularly bold mark across the neck of the spur on the N. The only entrance is on the S and certainly pierces four of the ditches, but the innermost is less well defined here and may even continue across the gap.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3138
