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Traquair, Chester Hill
Fort (Prehistoric)
Site Name Traquair, Chester Hill
Classification Fort (Prehistoric)
Canmore ID 53135
Site Number NT33NW 18
NGR NT 3141 3519
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/53135
- Council Scottish Borders, The
- Parish Traquair
- Former Region Borders
- Former District Tweeddale
- Former County Peebles-shire
NT33NW 18 3141 3519.
(NT 3141 3519) Fort (NR) (Site of)
OS 6" map (1964)
The remains of a mutivallate fort, now largely obliterated by surface-quarrying and cultivation, occupy the summit of Chester Hill. For a distance of 60ft on the NNW., the inner rampart, which lies within a walled plantation, appears as a flattened bank 20ft. in thickness and not more than one foot high, but other- wise it is represented only by a low scarp. The entrance was probably on the SE. The only visible traces of the outer rampart consist of a slight scarp nowhere more than 1ft 6in high. The interior is featureless. (Information from A McLaren notebook 1, 134)
RCAHMS 1967, visited 1961
The amorphous remains of this fort are generally as described.
Surveyed at 1/2500
Visited by OS (WDJ) 30 June 1961 and (SFS) 23 October 1974
Note (21 October 2015 - 31 August 2016)
This fort, which occupies the summit of Chester Hill above Traquair, has been severely reduced by cultivation and surface quarrying. Its defences comprise two ramparts set between 15m and 20m apart, the inner enclosed within an old roundel that was first planted with trees in the early 19th century, and the outer virtually obliterated by ploughing in the surrounding field. When recorded by RCAHMS investigators in 1961, one short sector of the inner survived on the N as a low bank, but otherwise the ramparts had been reduced to low scarps no more than 0.4m high. No entrance is visible and it is assumed to have been somewhere in the large gap in the inner rampart on the SE. The featureless interior measures 85m from NNE to SSW by 70m transversely (0.45ha), while the outer takes in a much larger area of 1.2ha.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 31 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3681
Sbc Note
Visibility: This is an upstanding earthwork or monument.
Information from Scottish Borders Council
