Goseland Hill

NT03NE 22 0810 3510.

Hachures centered NT 0810 3510. (No descriptive name)

OS 6" map, (1957).

A settlement is situated on the E flank of Goseland Hill, just above the saddle leading to Parkgatestone Hill. It measures 155ft by 140ft within a wall which has been reduced by robbing to a stony bank measuring not more than 2ft in height and spread to a maximum width of 15ft. The entrance is on the E. A similar bank, measuring 280ft in length and interrupted about half way by a gap 5ft wide, runs across the hill-side immediately above the settlement. Although this bank is too close to the settlement to form an annexe, it does not appear to be defensive, and its purpose is obscure. In the upper part of the in- terior of the settlement, which has been excavated to a depth of 7ft, there are three contiguous house-platforms: two of these measure 30ft and the other 25ft in diameter. A fourth house-platform, 20ft in diameter, is situated near the centre of the enclosure.

A straight bank 95ft in length, aligned frm ESE to WNW and each accompanied on the N by a quarry-ditch, lies on the saddle immediately outside the N arc of the settlement wall. A similar bank and ditch, 125ft long and aligned in the same direction, begin 75ft ESE of the first. These earthworks are unlikely to have been contemporary with the settlement, and it is possible that they marked the boundary between the lands of Parkgatestone and Goseland, a line which is continued north-westwards by the Cleuch Burn and south-eastwards by a nameless tributary of the Kilbucho Burn.

RCAHMS 1967, visited 1957.

This is a settlement consisting of an earth-and-stone bank, with an entrance in the E, enclosing an area measuring 46.0m N-S by 38.0m E-W which contains evidence of five houses.

Around the southern half of the settlement is a second bank with a break in the S. This appears to be overlaid on the W by the main bank which suggests that it may be an earlier phase of construction. The two sections of straight bank to the N and NE are probably part of a later boundary as suggested.

Revised at 1/2500 (RCAHMS).

Visited by OS(JP) 25 August 1972.

NT 0810 3512. A settlement as described above.

Surveyed at 1/10,000.

Visited by OS(BS) 27 February 1978.