Cauldshiels Hill

NT53SW 1.00 5155 3165

NT53SW 1.01 NT 5157 3166 Beaker; burial

(NT 5155 3165) Fort (NR)

OS 6" map (1967)

This fort is situated on the summit of Cauldshiels Hill, at a height of 1076ft OD. It is roughly oval on plan, measuring internally 220ft from E to W by 120ft transversely. The defences have comprised a continuous inner rampart (A on plan) drawn round the natural crest of the knoll that forms the actual summit of the hill, with the addition of a second and third rampart (B and C), each fronted by a ditch, on the S half of the perimeter. These outer works may also have been continuous, but there is now no trace of them along the steep N slope.

Judging by the two short segments that survive, on the SE arc, the inner rampart was probably a drystone wall; the outer ramparts, each of which is about 25 ft thick at the base and some 5 ft high externally, appear to have been constructed of heaped upcast from their respective ditches. At the W end of the fort there are some slight indications that the defences were supplemented by the interpolation between ramparts B and C of two discontinuous segmental ramparts (D and E), but the remains are difficult to interpret at this point owing to their wasted condition and surface quarrying. It could be that the defences are not all of one period; thus stone rampart A, and perhaps the segmental ramparts D and E may represent the primary fort, while the earthen ramparts B and C could have been added at a later date. The entrance was evidently on the E since rampart B and its ditch both end about 12ft from the lip of the steep N-facing slope, though the gap in the inner rampart (A) has been largely destroyed by quarrying, and the corresponding gap in rampart C has been blocked by a later linear earthwork (NT53SW 5).

A length of flattened turf dyke which runs downhill from the W end of the fort to Lin 530 (RCAHMS 1957) appears to be a field boundary, probably of no great age. Apart from the foundations of a small modern structure situated between ramparts A and B, the interior of the fort is featureless.

RCAHMS 1957, visited 1950

This fort is generally as described by RCAHMS, except that the wasted remains of rampart 'A' can be seen as a low spread mound about 3.0m broad on the W and S sides. At the E end of the fort, rampart 'C' and the counterscarp of the ditch in front of it do not turn sharply as shown on the plan, but curve smoothly to the SW.

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 9 February 1961

The interior of Cauldshiels Hill was subject to geophysical survey, in advance of excavation, but as expected the surveys were of little benefit, since there seemed little soil build-up above the natural bed-rock. This was confirmed by the excavation. The structural remains consisted of features cut into the rock, but at least one circular house was identified in the interior. Excavation on the defences revealed a ditch dramatically cut into the rock and a complex sequence of entrance structures at the eastern end of the site. Finds from this occupation consisted only of stone artefacts; whetstones and fragments of saddle quern, suggesting a date in the Iron Age.

R Jones (et al) 1991.