Turnhouse Hill

Fort, Castle Law.

On the summit of Castle-Knowe, a small hill on the southeastern slope of the Pentland Hills, on the northern side of the glen through which the Glencorse Burn issues from the hills, is the Castle Law fort (Fig. 103). It lies some 200 yards north of Castle Law farm, at an elevation of 1000 feet above sea-level, commanding a view of Lawhead fort [NT26SW 7], which lies about 1 ¼ miles to the south-west. The approach is steep on all sides except towards the north, where there is a dip of only a few feet into a hollow about 100 yards wide, which separates the hill from the main mass of the Pentlands.

The fort is oval on plan, the main axis running east-north-east and west-south-west, along which it measures internally some 270 feet, the breadth being on an average about 120 feet. It is surrounded by a series of earthen ramparts and ditches, the arrangement of which is not regular for the entire periphery, and it is provided with three entrances, one at either end and the third near the centre of the southern flank. The two outer defences are well preserved along the northern flank, but at all other parts the construction is now much broken down. The enceinte has been surrounded by a rampart, which for the greater part has been almost entirely obliterated. At an interval of approximately 50 feet from this a second earthen wall entirely encircles the fort, and a third line of defence has been constructed on the north and the south-western sides at a further interval of 35 feet. At most these ramparts do not rise to a height of more than 2 feet on the inside and 4 feet on the outside. The entrance in the south-western corner of the fort is 10 feet broad at the inner rampart, where the passage is excavated below the level of the interior. On emerging from the inner defence it swings to the right and is carried through the outer defences in a north-westerly direction. The entrance on the southern flank has likewise cut through the outer defences, in a slightly oblique and north-easterly direction, and it has been similarly excavated below the level, where it enters the enceinte in the form of a bifurcated passage. The north-eastern entrance makes a gap 12 feet broad in the inner rampart, and breaks the line of the second defence for approximately 35 feet, where a low-lying ridge or mound thrown across the opening on the outside may be the remains of an outer traverse to protect the passage. In front of this entrance is a pear-shaped mound or bastion, which has no hollow in the centre to suggest that it was a guard-chamber. Between the outer and inner ramparts, immediately to the south-east of the roadway, is a low, narrow, curved enclosure,65 feet in length, with a bulbous outline in the centre of its western flank and open at its northern end, where it approaches the northeastern entrance to the fort.

RCAHMS 1929, visited 26 August 1913.

OS map: vii S.W.

This site was included within the RCAHMS Marginal Land Survey (1950-1962), an unpublished rescue project. Site descriptions, organised by county, are available to view online - see the searchable PDF in 'Digital Items'. These vary from short notes, to lengthy and full descriptions. Contemporary plane-table surveys and inked drawings, where available, can be viewed online in most cases - see 'Digital Images'. The original typecripts, notebooks and drawings can also be viewed in the RCAHMS search room.

Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 19 July 2013.

Lawhead NT 2163 6218 19 NT26SW 7

Part of a palisaded enclosure is visible within the earthwork that crowns the prominent hill to the SE of Turnhouse Hill. The enclosure was probably roughly circular, measuring about 30m in diameter, but the palisade trench is clearly defined only on the N. The earthwork measures 85m by 60m within a rampart and ditch, and there are entrances on the NE and SW. Where best-preserved, the rampart stands up to 1.7m above the bottom of the ditch, but to the S of the field-wall that cuts across the earth work the defences have been reduced to a scarp by cultivation. Within the interior the positions of at least nine timber houses can be identified, two of them exceptionally well-preserved ring-ditch houses about 13m in overall diameter.

RCAHMS 1988

(RCAHMS 1929, 75, no. 103; Hill 1982, 34)

This fort occupies a conical minor summit forming a spur at the foot of the SE flank of Turnhouse Hill. Oval on plan, it measures 85m from NNE to SSW by 60m transversely (0.4ha) within a single rampart with an external ditch. Around the NW half of the circuit, where the rampart is better preserved, it stands 1.7m above the bottom of the ditch, but elsewhere it has been severely degraded by cultivation, to the point where it can barely be traced around the quarter to the S of the stone dyke that traverses the hill. There are entrances on the NE and SW, and traces of at least nine timber round-houses and a palisade trench within the interior. The houses include two well-defined ring-ditch houses some 13m in diameter, which are probably amongst the latest in a sequence of structures. The southern of two small platforms encircled by shallow shelves cut into the slope on the uphill side is intersected by the palisade trench, though the relationship between them is unclear, and the palisade trench itself, which ha s probably enclosed an area some 30m in diameter, has been obliterated by the construction of other round-houses houses representing at least two phases of construction on the S and E. The only other features of note are two turf-built structures overlying the terminals of the ditch either side of the NE entrance; they are probably herd's bothies of medieval or post-medieval date.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 16 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3711