Craig's Quarry

NT58SW 2 5082 8349.

(NT 5082 8349) Fort (NR) (site of)

OS 6" map (1968)

The fort at Craig's Quarry had largely been quarried away by 1949, when a rescue dig revealed the defensive wall to be stone-faced and 14' wide with a rubble core of occupation soil including animal bones, sea shells and pottery, thrown in from within the fort. More occupation soil overlay a hearth immediately behind the wall. The construction of the wall is attributable to the end of the 1st century BC. Finds include pot sherds, a piece of a clay mould, an upper quern stone of date not earlier than 1st century AD, and three stone balls of a type well known in SE Scottish native Iron Age sites.

Further excavations in 1954-5 revealed a similar defensive wall, 10' wide, a house site, and three long cists; one was destroyed, but two contained well-preserved skeletons.

Samian ware of early 2nd century AD in the over-burden suggests a Roman military slighting. Otherwise the sherds are of Iron Age date, the most important finds including a La Tene type II bronze brooch, twelve stone balls of type already noted above, sherds of large coarse vessels, fragment of bronze binding slip, whetstone, antler spindle whorl, an unfinished ring and an armlet fragment, both of lignite. These with other finds are all in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland [NMAS] (Accession Nos HH 612 - 645 etc).

In 1943-4, two stone balls from this site were donated to the NMAS by Prof V G Childe.

S Piggott and C M Piggott 1954; A S Henshall 1955; S Piggott 1960; A S Henshall 1950; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1944; 1951; 1952

Classification of Roman material.

A S Robertson 1970

Workmen at Craig's Quarry indicated the approximate position at NT 5082 8349 where the cists were found. The quarry face has advanced and no trace of the fort could be found. It is possible, however, that some remains of the defences survive under the mounds of top soil debris or hidden beneath undergrowth which is up to 1.8m high.

Visited by OS (RDL) 14 November 1962.