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Garvald Mains
Fort (Prehistoric)
Site Name Garvald Mains
Classification Fort (Prehistoric)
Alternative Name(s) Papana Water
Canmore ID 56095
Site Number NT56NE 4
NGR NT 58339 69799
NGR Description Centre
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/56095
- Council East Lothian
- Parish Garvald And Bara
- Former Region Lothian
- Former District East Lothian
- Former County East Lothian
NT56NE 4 5834 6979
(NT 5834 6979) Fort (NR)
OS 25" map (1966)
This fort lies on a small flat, broad plateau (600ft OD) near the right bank of the Papana Water, protected on S and W by steep slopes. It is almost circular on plan, measuring 280ft by 240ft within a broad heavy rampart which is crowned by the ruin of a thick stone wall. The entrance, in the SE, leads in to a grassy space in which there are no visible surface remains.
RCAHMS 1924, visited 1913; R W Feachem 1963.
This fort is generally as described and planned. The wall is now only an earth-and-stone bank rising 0.8m above the interior in the N and E, and 0.3m in the S. Elsewhere it has disappeared. Apart from a modern storage tank in the NE corner, there is no trace of any structure within the fort.
Resurveyed at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (RD) 30 March 1965
Noted as an enclosure by Feachem, who states that, without excavation it is impossible to determine whether the massive rampart and wall are of one build or whether they represent defences that have been modified.
R W Feachem 1965.
Field Visit (22 May 1913)
This fort (fig. 70 [plan]), 150 yards south-west of Garvald Mains, on the 600 feet contour line, occupies the summit of a plateau projecting from the high ground to the east of the Papana Water, which flows past on the south-west 150 feet below. On the south and west the ground falls in a very steep declivity to the haugh on the right bank of the burn. Roughly circular. in plan the enclosure measures 280 feet long by 240 feet broad internally. The hill top has been scarped all round. A broad stone wall, plundered for building material, I6 feet wide at the foundation and rising 5 feet above the inner level and 11 feet above the outer level, is seen on the eastern side and has been carried along the north, but this part is much destroyed and can be seen only in places, where it shows a breadth of 3 feet and a height of 1 foot above the level of the interior. On the western side facing the burn a terrace 12 feet wide has been cut on the steep natural escarpment 9 ½ feet below the interior level. There is an entrance 12 feet wide in the south-eastern arc.
RCAHMS 1924, visited 22 May 1913.
Field Visit (3 June 1954)
Fort, Garvald Mains, (Inventory No. 51).
There is nothing to add to the Inventory account. The fort is similar to the one at Kidlaw [NT56SW 1], the inner wall showing the same composite construction of a dry wall built on an upcast mound.
Visited by RCAHMS (KAS) 3 June 1954.
Geophysical Survey (5 July 2014 - 6 July 2014)
NT 5834 6979 A ground resistance survey, consisting of 24 full and part grids was undertaken, 5–6 July 2014, at Garvald Mains Hillfort. Results indicated high resistance linear anomalies in the SE, representing a probable stone rampart core. Amorphous high resistances over most of the E half of the fort are probably geological in nature. There were vague
sub-circular and linear anomalies to the NW, which might be settlement areas or enclosures.
Archive: East Lothian SMR , Historic Scotland and RCAHMS (intended)
Funder: Connolly Heritage Consultancy and Edinburgh Archaeological Field Society
Ian Hawkins - Edinburgh Archaeological Field Society
(Source: DES)
Note (7 December 2015 - 18 May 2016)
This fort is situated on a spur that projects SW above the Papana Water immediately SW of Garvald Mains. Slightly circular on plan, it measures 85m in maximum diameter (0.53ha) within a single rampart with an external ditch. The rampart, which in the opinion of the RCAHMS investigators who revisited in 1954 comprised the remains of a wall on a possibly earlier bank, is up to 4.5m in thickness, and stands 1.2m high above the interior and 4m above the almost ploughed-out external ditch. The interior, which has been cultivated, is featureless and the entrance is probably on the SE.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3848
Note (6 January 2020)
The location, classification and period of this site have been reviewed.
