Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Outerwards

Fortlet (Roman)

Site Name Outerwards

Classification Fortlet (Roman)

Canmore ID 41272

Site Number NS26NW 2

NGR NS 2316 6660

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/41272

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

Toggle Aerial | View on large map

Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council North Ayrshire
  • Parish Largs
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Cunninghame
  • Former County Ayrshire

Archaeology Notes

NS26NW 2 2316 6660

NS 2316 6660. A Roman fortlet or 'patrol post' on a narrow ridge which is traversed by an alleged Roman road (RRX 520) which bifurcates to pass round the fortlet, was excavated by Newall in July 1970. It had superficially consisted of a subrectangular enceinte, about 50ft each way, surrounded by a turf rampart spread to 20ft, a 7 to 9ft berm and an external ditch 11ft wide. The narrow ridge so constricts the fortlet that the ditch is forced to the bottom of the slope, presenting an illusory surface appearance of circularity.

Two gateways were located, centrally on the S side and eccentrically at the NE angle "the road passing obliquely along the berm and across the ditch left here as a narrow drainage channel. This feature was primary, and we must consider the possibility that the N end of the W primary barracks had an eastward extension".

Excavations have revealed two periods of occupation, both Antonine. In the first, a 12ft 6ins wide rampart, solidly kerbed externally but merely delimited internally for the adaptation of a turf bank at rear, was interrupted on the S, with a normal straight-faced rampart end, to receive a gateway 7ft 6ins wide between posts of which there were probably three opposed pairs.

Only 3ft from the rampart on either side of a 7ft 6ins wide street lay timber-framed buildings 36ft N-S by 15ft wide on the W side of the street, and on the E, 12ft wide.

The destruction of this fortlet was so thorough that the entire interior was covered by a scatter of burnt wattle and daub from the 'barracks' walls, the rampart was slighted on both faces, the gateway was entirely pulled down - one gatepost had been snapped across - and the collapse of the rampart on the W side had possibly led to the loop road on that side being washed out by flooding.

In the second occupation, which followed within a few years - sufficient to allow a slight growth of vegetation in the interior of the fortlet - a similar plan was adopted. The rampart reconstruction produced an unusual flattened curve at the rampart ends on each side of the entrance, due to the addition of turf banks on both faces, the outer, probably buttressing, retained by a massive roughly constructed stone footing, the inner possibly acting as rampart manning bank cum intervallum, as the sills from timber-framed buildings were laid alongside it. The buildings now measured 35' N-S by 14' on the W and 14' wide on the E. On the E the new loop road was added.

From the primary floor of the W barracks came neck and rim sherds of an Antonine 1 olla, the only closely dateable vessel of 13 represented in sherds, 6 from the primary and 7 from the secondary floors.

Re-used as kerbing behind the gateway were fragments of at least 3 Andernach lava querns.

F Newall 1970; D R Wilson 1972; F Newall 1976.

NS 2316 6660. A Roman fortlet, generally as described and planned. Situated on the highest point of a broad, moorland ridge at approximately 272m OD, it commands extensive views to the Firth of Clyde on the W and N, but is generally overlooked on the landward east.

The remains are slight, though well-defined; the turf rampart has a maximum internal height of 0.3m and the surrounding ditch a maximum depth of some 0.5m. The outlines of Newall's excavation trenches are still visible, but there is no surface evidence of the alleged road traversing to the N and S of the site.

Surveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS(JRL) 22 February 1983.

Activities

Publication Account (1985)

The fortlet at Outerwards forms part of the westward continuation of the Antonine frontier system that guarded the Clyde approaches to the Wall (see also Lurg Moor, no. 76). It comprises a subs quare enclosure measuring 14.3m across within a low (0.3m) turf rampart, with two entrances. Further protection was provided by an irregular outer ditch which was interrupted by a causeway on the south-south-west, but there was no gap on the north-north-east corresponding to the entrance through the rampart. Excavation in 1970 showed that the fortlet contained two timber buildings and that it was occupied on two separate occasions within the Antonine period. Although the fortlet is only the size of a large watchpost (0.2 ha), the excavation showed that it had a permanent garrison and no internal tower. The site, however, commands extensive views over the Firth of Clyde and would have functioned in much the same way as the fortlets along the line of the Antonine Wall, being linked by road to the fortlets further north and south in the chain.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Clyde Estuary and Central Region’, (1985).

References

MyCanmore Image Contributions


Contribute an Image

MyCanmore Text Contributions