Carman

This site was included within the RCAHMS Marginal Land Survey (1950-1962), an unpublished rescue project. Site descriptions, organised by county, are available to view online - see the searchable PDF in 'Digital Items'. These vary from short notes, to lengthy and full descriptions. Contemporary plane-table surveys and inked drawings, where available, can be viewed online in most cases - see 'Digital Images'. The original typecripts, notebooks and drawings can also be viewed in the RCAHMS search room.

Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 19 July 2013.

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.

Carman NS 371 794 NS37NE 2

This fort stands at a height of 230 m OD overlooking the Firth of Clyde. The defences comprise two distinct elements, an inner enclosure or citadel, and an outer enclosure with an annexe on the E. Within the outer enclosure there are the remains of up to twelve stone-walled houses and there are a further three in the annexe.

RCAHMS 1978

(Feachem 1966, 83-4)

This fort is situated on Carman, the southernmost and lowest of the rounded summits of a ridge of hills due W of Alexandria. Its defences comprise two main elements, with a relatively small inner enclosure standing on the N side of a much larger outer work, and though their perimeters coincide upon the N, the relationship between them is unknown. The inner enclosure is oval on plan, measuring about 55m from E to W by 40m transversely (0.17ha) within a heavily-robbed wall some 3m in thickness; large sectors of the wall have been all but removed, but where best preserved, on the W, it forms a bank up to 0.9m in height, along which occasional inner and outer facing-stones are visible, and on the W and S there are also traces of shallow internal quarries. Of the two gaps in the perimeter, on the SE and SW respectively, the latter is probably the original entrance. The interior is featureless. The outer enclosure measures about 145m from NW to SE by 130m transversely (1.5ha) within a wall reduced to a band of rubble about 2.4m in thickness, along which stones of both faces can be seen, including a substantial run of the outer face on the SW. Apparently butting onto this wall on the NE and SE is an outer wall, which forms an annexe from 10m broad on the SE to 20m on the NE, but in this sector both walls are reduced largely to scarps strewn haphazardly with large slabs and boulders up to 1.5m in length by 1.2m in breadth. Of the four gaps in the rampart shown on the plan drawn up by RCAHMS in 1955, three, on the NE, S and W respectively, roughly occurring at the extreme corners of the enclosure, appear to be original, with evidence of wear by traffic. That on the NE has a corresponding gap in the outer wall, as does the fourth gap on the E. The fort evidently stands on the route of a relatively easy passage across the hills and there are a series of hollowed trackways crossing the saddle to the N and possibly including the hollowed way extending up to the entrance on the W and another feature variously forming a terrace and a hollow that was described by the RCAHMS investigators extending along the N flank of the fort immediately below the perimeter. Within the interior there are at least twelve house platforms, while another three possible examples lie within the annexe on the E.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 11 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC1338