Rullion Green
Cremation Cemetery (Iron Age), Ring Enclosure(S) (Prehistoric)
Site Name Rullion Green
Classification Cremation Cemetery (Iron Age), Ring Enclosure(S) (Prehistoric)
Alternative Name(s) Lawhead Hill
Canmore ID 51914
Site Number NT26SW 8
NGR NT 2209 6224
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/51914
- Council Midlothian
- Parish Glencorse
- Former Region Lothian
- Former District Midlothian
- Former County Midlothian
NT26SW 8 2209 6224
There are eleven ring enclosures (c/f Broughton Knowe - NT03NE 15) on level ground at NT 2209 6224. There appear to be four types: A, B, C, D and L have a central area (possibly raised) enclosed by a bank surrounded by a shallow ditch; E and F are visible as slight banks; G and H as ditches with very slight outer banks, while J and K are very shallow ditches (RCAHMS 1929).
They are all grass-covered and vary from 5.0m to 9.7m in diameter. No entrances are visible. The best preserved is A, where the central area, 3.0m in diameter, is surrounded by a low bank about 2.0m wide with a shallow outer ditch 2.0m wide, the diameter overall being 10.4m. Surveyed at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (RD) 2 February 1970
(Centred NT 2209 6224) Enclosures (NR) (11 shown)
OS 25" map (1972)
Stevenson, noting only eight enclosures, states that one of the larger ones was partly excavated in 1948. It consisted of a ditch, 32' in overall diameter and 2'6" deep. A narrow ring of stones, resting on the bottom of the ditch and rising to the old ground level, gave the appearance of a rough, flimsy wall. Otherwise, the ditch was filled with soil without silting but with a high-level iron-pan layer. Round the inner lip of the ditch was a shallow bank of clayey soil, and the inner edge of the bank was made irregular by a series of small but very distinct depressions. In the centre of the site was a post hole. To the S of the post hole was an intensely black area of charcoal with fragments of burnt bone too small for precise identification. Over this was a spread of soil in which was embedded an irregular scatter of stones. The only finds were some flint chips.
On this evidence, Stevenson interprets the site as a burial structure. Within the ditch, which had no entrance gap and had been filled deliberately, there had probably been erected a slight wooden wig-wam about 16' in diameter, its base resting against the continuous bank which was designed to hold it (c/f NT03NE 15 and NT26SW 28).
R B K Stevenson 1973
Field Visit (20 August 1913)
Earthen Circles, Lawhead Hill.
On the eastern slope of Lawhead Hill, about 500 yards from Lawhead fort [NT26SW 7] and about the same distance west of the farm of Rullion Green, immediately to the south of a belt of trees, in rough ground, seven earthen circles can be traced, five of them forming an irregular line from north -east to south-west, and two lying a short distance to the east. The best preserved of these is the most northerly, where the central area, 9 feet in diameter, is surrounded by a low bank 6 feet broad, with a shallow trench, 4 feet broad, outside, the diameter over all being 29 feet. In the other examples the bank is less noticeable; four have overall an average diameter of 28 feet.
Immediately to the north of these earthen circles is the position marked on the map ‘Site of Covenanters' Camp’, the camp being that before the battle of Rullion Green, 28 Nov. 1666. As, however, the Covenanters merely bivouacked near Rullion Green on the morning of that day, and the battle took place in the afternoon it is not in the least likely that these constructions have any connection with that occasion.
RCAHMS 1929, visited 20 August 1913
OS map: xiii N.W.
Note (1988)
Rullion Green NT 2209 6224 NT26SW 8
There is a group of eleven ring enclosures on a level shoulder on the N side of Lawhead Hill. One was excavated in 1948 and a further eight between 1983 and 1985. Most of the excavated examples comprised double banks with a medial ditch, but two had only single banks and one of those had no ditch at all. The enclosures were annular or penannular on plan, with overall diameters of between 7.5m and 9.5m; they varied from 0.2m to 0.6m in depth, but all of them had been deliberately refilled. The inner banks were up to 2m broad and stood up to 0.3m above the surface of the refilled ditches, but the outer banks were very slight, some of them being barely visible before excavation. Small deposits of cremated bone were found on prepared surfaces within most of the enclosures; charcoal associated with one of these deposits has yielded a date of 635 ± 105 b.c. (GU-1755). A scatter of flint flakes and artefacts was also found (RMS, EQ 800-10).
RCAHMS 1988
(RCAHMS 1929, 75-6, no. 104; Stevenson 1972, 48-9; Watkins 1984; 1986; forthcoming)
