Devonshaw Hill

NS92NE 1 9537 2835

(NS 9537 2835) Fort (NR)

OS 6" map (1962).

Fort and Enclosure, Devonshaw Hill: A rocky knoll at the end of the steep-sided spur that projects SW from Devonshaw Hill, about 430m NE of Woodend farmhouse, is occupied by the remains of a fort and enclosure. At 305m OD, the site commands extensive views along the narrow valley of the River Clyde to NE and SW, but it is vulnerable on the E, where the ground rises immediately outside the defences and provides cover for a raiding-party.

The fort if roughly oval on plan, measuring 64m by 45m within a rampart of earth and stones, which, judging by the evidence of robber-trenches, may originally have been revetted externally with stone; it now survives at best as a grass-covered bank standing 0.3m above the level of the interior, but is reduced for more than half its circuit to a mere scarp. A further, intermittent series of low scarps and terraces, which can be seen on the NE, NW and SW flanks of the knoll at an average distance of about 10m from the inner rampart, indicate the course of an outer line of defence which may once have continued round the entire perimeter. The three severely denuded lengths of bank which, together with a sinuous scarp, lie at the foot of rising ground to the SE, cannot easily be explained as contemporary outer defences, and may be associated with recent disturbance of the site. there are two entrances, each 2.4m wide, on the S and NE respectively, the latter leading into a hollow measuring 12m by 6m. The interior contains the surface traces of at least six timber houses, four of which are represented solely by crescentic scarps, and the others also by ring-grooves.

On the rising ground immediately to the NE of the fort there are the attenuated remains of an enclosure measuring 17m by at least 14m internally. It has been bounded by a bank of earth and stones, at present best preserved in the NE half of its perimeter, where it measures 1.5m in average thickness and not more than 0.3m in height; elsewhere it has been totally removed by modern cultivation, which has also encroached upon the interior, making it uncertain whether the crescentic scarp visible in the SW half is of prehistoric or recent date. The gap in the bank on the NE may, however, mark the position of an original entrance.

RCAHMS 1978, visited 1975

The fort and enclosures were in a similar condition when visited in 1959.

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (JLD), 14 July 1959.

Fort, Enclosure and Cultivation Remains - visible on RCAHMS air photograph.

(Undated) information in OS Archaeology records.