Bloomfield

NT52SE 5 5925 2458.

(Centre: NT 5925 2458) Earthwork (NR).

OS 6" map (1924)

Earthwork, Bloomfield. On the crest of a ridge at a point 600 yds NE of Bloomfield, and at a height of 550ft OD, there are some slight remains of a rectangular earthwork with rounded corners measuring 300ft from NE to SW by 250ft from NW to SE within a single rampart and ditch are faintly revealed by crop-marks on National Survey air-photographs taken in 1948. In the NW half, which was formerly under the plough but is at present unenclosed, the rampart survives as a low bank formed of upcast from the ditch; at the N corner, where it is best preserved, it is spread to a thickness of 18ft and measures 6ft 6 in in height above the ditch. The ditch is 20ft wide and up to 1ft deep below the surface of the ground outside. No entrance or internal structures are visible. The plan of the earthwork suggests a mediaeval rather than a prehistoric date.

RCAHMS 1956, visited 1948

(i) Miscellaneous earthworks: In the absence of excavation, over eighty earthworks in the county cannot be classified either because they do not conform to recognised types or because their plans are not sufficiently distinctive. A few of these, occupying commanding positions on hilltops or the crests of ridges, are unlikely to be later than the 11th century ; such are Bonchester Hill (No. 278), the group of earthworks on Whitcastle Hill (No. 865), and five roughly D-shaped earthworks lying within a radius of two miles between the River Teviot and the Slitrig Water- Gray Hill 2 (No. 999), Birny Knowe (No. 995), Crom Rig (No. 1000), Dodburn (No. 160, ii), and Pen Sike (No. 168)- which are characterised by ramparts massive in proportion to their size. The majority, however, are situated on hillsides or in the bottoms of valleys, generally below the 800ft. contour, and are probably mediaeval. Most of these lower-lying structures, of which the outstanding examples are Timpendean (No. 435), Iron Castle (No. 945), and Scraesburgh (No. 466), were evidently designed for habitation and presumably contained wooden buildings ; but a few of the simpler earthworks such as Huntly Burn (No. 51) may have been enclosures for stock.

RCAHMS 1956

This earthwork is generally as described by the RCAHMS except that the rampart has been reduced to a scarp on the NW side. NW of the fence the earthwork has been severely mutilated by forestry-ploughing and is now planted over with conifers. The site is overlooked by rising ground, from the SW.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 21 February 1967

This earthwork is set on a broad ridge which rises slightly towards the SW. To the NW of a fence-line, the perimeter is clearly discernible in mature woodland and undergrowth, but on the date of visit, nothing was visible in ploughed stubble to the SE.

Visited by RCAHMS (RM/JRS) 28 September 1993.