Craigmarloch Wood

Fort, Craigmarloch Wood.

This fort is situated on an eminence which stands in the gap between Knockmountain on the E and Devol Moor on the W and commands the route southwards from Port Glasgow. It is distant one mile and a half S of the S shore of the mouth of the River Clyde where this meets the Firth of Clyde, and a quarter of a mile WSW of the house marked on the Ordnance Survey maps as East Kilbride but to which the name Craigmarloch has been transferred from the abandoned house 330 yards to the SW. The knoll upon which the fort stands is one of a group of four each of which attains an elevation of a little over 500 feet O. D. No natural obstacles bar approach to the summit area from the E., but broad shallow gullies adjoin it to NNE and SSE and the steep rocky flanks of the knoll hinder access from the SW, W and NW.

The fort [DP 149901] is subrectangular on plan with rounded corners, and measures 160 feet in length by 85 feet in breadth within the substantial ruin of a stone wall. This now consists of a mound of large stones and boulders which stands to a maximum height of about 3 feet 6 inches and is spread to a width of about 12 feet. No facing stones can be seen in situ, but it is estimated that the wall was originally out 8 feet or 10 feet in thickness. An entrance 6 feet wide pierces the arc and a ragged breach of uncertain character, 15 feet in extent, interrupts the ESE arc.

A stretch of the N section of the wall 130 feet in length forms the chord of a D-shaped annexe 60 feet in breadth. The arc consists of a ruined wall, similar in appearance to the wall of the fort but only about 6 feet in thickness, which lies on the SSW slope of the gully NNE of the site. A gap 50 feet in length in the arc of this may have included an original entrance to the annexe but there is no indication that direct communication with the fort was ever provided. The floor of the annexe rises 16 feet from NNE to SSW.

A stretch of ruinous wall 125 feet in length and about 6 feet thick runs from ESE to 70 feet beyond and 30 feet below the S section of the wall of the fort. Its E end rests on an outcrop which marks the W termination of the gully SSE of the fort while its end fades away on the steepening SW flank of the knoll. In addition, faint traces of what may have been walling, formed by a few boulders which appear to be in situ, occur at short distances beyond either end of the stretch of wall. They suggest that another annexe might have adjoined the fort to the S, but this is uncertain. Masses of vitrified matter appear in the stretch of the wall of the fort in the vicinity of the entrance. No other patches were observed elsewhere on the perimeter, and it is possible that these represent the result of the burning of a wooden gateway.

The interior of the fort is planted with trees and the only feature is a modern stone-built sunken fox-trap which lies in the S quarter.

Visited by RCAHMS (RWF) 5 May 1954

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.

This fort occupies one of several hillocks in Craigmarloch Wood, with steep rocky slopes protecting its western flank and shallow gullies isolating it on the NNE and SSW. Subrectangular on plan, the interior measures about 49m from ESE to WNW by 26m transversely (0.11ha) within a wall reduced to a mound of rubble 3.5m in thickness by 1m in height. Extensive vitrifaction can be seen to either side of a narrow entrance on the WNW, and a broader gap on the ESE may indicate the position of a second, though this may equally be a more recent break. On the NNW side of the fort there is also what appears to be an annexe. This is shown on a plan drawn up by RCAHMS in 1954 as a D-shaped enclosure dropping down the slope to the N and measuring about 40m from ESE to WNW along the chord formed by the fort wall by 18m transversely within a wall reduced to a mound of rubble some 2m in thickness, but a later rendering of the remains by Helen Nisbet, prepared in the course of her excavations 1963-5, shows it pursuing a different line on the NW, swinging round the WNW end of the fort, with a clear implication that it forms the plinth she observed beneath the wall of the fort on the S (Nisbet 1996, 44, fig 2). If this is indeed the case, it represents the remains of an earlier enclosure of some 0.25ha, with an entrance on the NE. Another length of wall on the S side of the shallow gully flanking the southern side of the hillock is not so easily explicable as the line of an earlier perimeter and may indicate the presence of an annexe, albeit that the greater part of its interior lies on the boggy floor of the gully. The excavations concentrated on the WNW end of the fort, revealing that the fort wall, which measured about 3m in thickness over its faces, was a complex structure, with an inner kerbed core and possible evidence of both upright and longitudinal timberwork, as well as the casts of transverse beams in the vitrified masses to either side of the entrance; the entrance itself was 1.8m wide, but the facing of its sides included lumps of vitrifaction and it appears to have been reconstructed after the destruction of the timber-laced wall on a narrower design. In the third season twin palisade trenches were uncovered outside the entrance, adding a further dimension to what is evidently a complex history of occupation and construction. The palisades were thought to have been burnt and replaced on at least one occasion and are probably associated with occupation deposits predating the fort which produced a rich assemblage of coarse pottery, five fragments of iron, fragments of crucible, a mould for a decorative boss, fragments of shale bracelets and working debris, a tanged flint arrowhead and a disc of barytes.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 16 November 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC1341