Dechmont Hill
Burial Cairn (Prehistoric)(Possible), Fort (Period Unassigned), Food Vessel (Pottery)(Bronze Age)(Possible)
Site Name Dechmont Hill
Classification Burial Cairn (Prehistoric)(Possible), Fort (Period Unassigned), Food Vessel (Pottery)(Bronze Age)(Possible)
Canmore ID 44867
Site Number NS65NE 18
NGR NS 6569 5821
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/44867
- Council South Lanarkshire
- Parish Cambuslang (East Kilbride)
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District East Kilbride
- Former County Lanarkshire
NS65NE 18 6569 5821.
(NS 6569 5821) Fort (NR)
OS 1:10,000 map, (1977)
There are faint traces of the foundations of ancient buildings on the summit of Dechmont Hill. These ruins were considerable about fifty years ago, but since that time the stones and rubbish have been removed to make dykes and repair roads. A former proprietor, when digging on the summit of the hill, discovered the foundation of a circular building about 24ft in diameter. The stones had been carefully joined together, without mortar. They were freestones, which must have been brought from a distance as the stones on this hill are all whin.
New Statistical Account (NSA) (written by J Robertson - 1840) 1845.
The slight remains of a mutilvallate fort occupy the summit of Dechmont Hill (183m OD). The fort is horse-shoe shaped on plan with its ends resting on the cliff edge on the N, but easily approached from all other directions. It measures internally some 80.0m NE-SW by 65.0m transversely. The ramparts have been greatly reduced by cultivation and appear for the most part simply as crest-lines. The two outer ramparts, spaced 20.0m apart, have been extensively mutilated and are no longer traceable to the NE. A third inner rampart encircles the top of the hill enclosing an area some 40.0m in diameter; it may or may not be contemporary with the outer defence works. An entrance is visible in the W side, where a hollow track leads up to a gap in the outer ramparts. (See also NS65NE 21).
Surveyed at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (A C) 13 May 1959.
Field Visit (August 1974)
NS 656 582. Fort (possible), Dechmont Hill (Site): The remains here cannot now be disentangled from the traces of cultivation on the W side and recent military disturbance near the summit.
RCAHMS 1978, visited August 1974.
Field Visit (2 December 1985)
No change. The probable remains of a fort.
Visited by RCAMS (SPH) 2 December 1985.
Note (11 August 2014 - 16 November 2016)
Little is now visible of the fort that occupies the central portion of Dechmont Hill, which is a ridge lying roughly ENE and WSW. As recorded by the OS in 1959, it is D-shaped on plan, backing onto the steep escarpment that forms the NNW flank of the hill. Elsewhere they traced two ramparts set some 20m apart, though for the most part these were reduced to little more than scarps on the slope, and an entrance with a hollowed track leading up to it was visible on the W. Within the interior, which measured about 80m from ENE to WSW by 65m transversely (0.4ha), there were traces of a third rampart forming a discrete enclosure about 40m in internal diameter on the summit of the hill; it is unclear whether this was associated with the outer defences or was perhaps a later enclosure inserted into the interior. The only other feature of note is a burial cairn about 10m in diameter by 0.9m in height beneath the OS triangulation Station upon the summit; notable for its encircling ditch with external bank, it is probably the site of the discovery of a Bronze Age Food Vessel donated to the National Museum of Antiquities in 1882 (Proc Soc Antiiq Scotland16, 1882, 147). Antiquarian excavations about the end of the 1780s uncovered 'the foundation of a circular building, about 24 feet in diameter' (Stat Acct, v, 1793, 264n), but it is perhaps more likely that this was part of the burial cairn on the summit rather than a domestic structure within the fort.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 16 November 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC1464
