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Gallowberry Wood
Fort (Prehistoric), House Platform(S) (Prehistoric)
Site Name Gallowberry Wood
Classification Fort (Prehistoric), House Platform(S) (Prehistoric)
Alternative Name(s) Bryland
Canmore ID 50144
Site Number NT14SW 8
NGR NT 1245 4335
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/50144
- Council Scottish Borders, The
- Parish Kirkurd
- Former Region Borders
- Former District Tweeddale
- Former County Peebles-shire
NT14SW 8 1245 4335.
(NT 1245 4335) Fort (NR)
OS 6" map (1968)
On an isolated knoll there is a fort measuring internally 270' by 100'. The margin of the summit-area of the knoll has been quarried to provide material for a wall (A) which, though it may originally have measured some 10' in thickness, now appears at best only as a stony bank from which a few facing-stones protrude. There are two entrances, each 5' wide, at the NE and SW ends respectively. The interior contains four house-platforms (numbered 1-4 on the plan), the best preserved (2) measuring 18' across.
Traces of a second line of defence occur in the form of scarps (B), about 3' 6" in height, which lie on the NE and SW flanks of the knoll at distances varying from 10' to 30' outside wall A. The scarp on the N side of the NE entrance is accompanied by a shallow external quarry- ditch, the line of which is continued across the NW flank of the knoll in the form of a very slight terrace. The insignificant nature of the scarps and terrace may imply that the defensive scheme of which they formed part was not completed. What is unquestionably an unfinished ditch (C), however, lies at the S foot of the knoll. Four detached stretches presumably represent an early stage in the construction of an obstacle to bar approach to the fort from the adjacent rising ground. (Information from R W Feachem notebook 1959, 113)
RCAHMS 1967, visited 1959
This fort is as described.
Visited by OS (SFS) 5 November 1974
Reference (1957)
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.
Note (15 October 2015 - 18 May 2016)
This fort occupies a hillock on the spur descending NW above Bryland, and having been planted with trees in the 19th century now lies within a clearing in a larger coniferous forest. Oval on plan, the fort measures about 80m from NE to SW by 30m transversely (0.2ha) within a rampart which forms a stony bank to either side of the entrances in the NE and SW ends, but is otherwise reduced to a scarp along the flanks. Flanking the entrances at both ends, however, there is also an outer rampart, again reduced to a scarp, while lying downslope on the N and along the foot of the slope in the saddle to the the SE traces of a ditch can be seen. Clearly broken into four segments by undug causeways in the saddle, RCAHMS investigators in 1959 suggested these were the remains of an unfinished circuit. Within the interior there is a shallow quarry scoop immediately in the rear of the inner rampart, but at four points house platforms have been cut into the back of the scoop.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3637
Sbc Note
Visibility: This is an upstanding earthwork or monument.
Information from Scottish Borders Council
