Cairngryffe Hill

Childe supervised excavations for the Ancient Monuments Board in 1939.

V G Childe 1941

NS94SW 11 9429 4116

(NS 9429 4116) Earthwork (NAT)

OS 6" map (1898)

The area has been quarried away.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 8 January 1968.

NS 942 411. Fort, Cairngryffe Hill (Site): In 1939 V G Childe carried out a limited rescue excavation on the fort situated on the summit of Cairngryffe Hill, in advance of its destruction by quarrying during the Second World War: the following description and plan are based largely on the published report (V G Childe 1941).

The defences appear to have belonged to two periods. In the first phase a single rampart enclosed an oval area measuring about 49m from N to S by 42m transversely. The rampart stood to a height of 0.5m and was revetted externally by large blocks of stone set on edge. At a later date a stone wall, enclosing an oval area measuring 22.3m from N to S by 19.2m transversely, was built inside, but not concentric with, the earlier rampart. The wall, which varied between 2.7m and 3.7m in thickness, was in a better state of preservation than the rampart and reached a maximum height of 0.9m in five courses on the NE. Excavation revealed the greater part of the inner wall-face, but the great quantity of rubble core that had slumped outwards prevented much of the outer face from being uncovered. Both the rampart and wall were interrupted by a single entrance on the S, but quarrying and stone-robbing had destroyed them before 1939. No traces of any circular houses were found in the interior, but a series of eight holes, probably post-holes, were discovered on the NE, close to the inner wall-face. Childe considered that they represented some form of extra revetting for the wall, but it is more likely that they were for the rear posts of a timber building abutting the wall. Christison (1890, 325) noted several traverses, consisting of stony banks, linking the rampart and wall, but they were probably stock enclosures of no great age, similar to those found at Brough Law, Northumberland (G Jobey 1971, 80). The only other internal feature was a modern sheepfold that partially overlay the wall on the SE.

The finds, which are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS), consist of a bronze Donside terret; a bronze object, possibly a linch-pin, from which a bronze disc has apparently become detached; a small hemispherical objects of lead; two rings, one of jet and the other of stone; and an artificially rounded quartz disc. The significance and date of the finds is discussed in RCAHMS 1978, 29.

RCAHMS 1978

The remains of a small fortification that once occupied the summit of Cairngryffe Hill was excavated in 1939 by Professor Gordon Childe (Childe 1941). The defences comprised two elements, namely a small inner walled enclosure, and an outer rampart, and probably represented two separate phases of construction. The inner enclosure was oval on plan and measured 22m from N to S by 20m transversely (0.04) within a wall at least 3m thick, with parts of its faces still standing up to 0.9m in height in five courses; the entrance was on the S. The outer rampart enclosed an area measuring 47m from N to S by 41m transversely (0.15ha) and comprised little more than a low bank of rubble about 3m in thickness, with an external kerb of upright slabs, many of which had fallen outwards and boulders. While Childe considered that this cannot have formed a substantial barrier, it may have been robbed to build the inner enclosure. Its entrance was also on the S, but had already been destroyed by the time of the excavation. Apart from a row of post-holes immediately to the rear of the inner wall on the ENE, and a possible drain extending beneath the wall on the SSE, no traces of any internal structures were uncovered. Apart from part of a stone ring found in the drain, quarrymen recovered; a Donside terret; a bronze object, possibly a lynch-pin; a hemispherical lead object; and a cannel coal ring.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 25 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC1820