Gilliestongues

NT61NW 17 6372 1659

(Centred: NT 63721689) Fort (NR)

OS 6" map, Roxburghshire, (1917-38).

Earthwork, Gilliestongues. This earth-work (Plan, RCAHMS 1956, fig.296), situated 100 yds NW of Gilliestongues farm, occupies the end of a narrow elongated promontory formed by the confluence of the Kye and Swinnie Burns. The site is a strong one since the plateau is raised some 50 ft above the beds of the enclosing burns and is bounded by a precipitous cliff on the greater part of the ESE side, and by steep and occasionally precipitous slopes on the NNE and WNW. The only easy approach to the site is thus along the spur from the SSW.

The earthwork, which is designed to take full advantage of the natural defences, measures 370 ft in length internally along its major axis; its width is not now determinable owing to the total destruction, by cultivation and landslips, of the ramparts on the two longer sides, but this unlikely to have exceeded 150 ft. At the SSW end there can be seen the wasted remains of double, concentric ramparts, bow-shaped on plan and separated by a ditch; these are pierced by a central causeway which probably represents an original entrance. The outer rampart, which now survives only as a truncated fragment on the W side of the causeway, is up to 20 ft thick at the base by 2 ft in height; the ditch, on the same side, is from 12 ft to 15 ft wide at the bottom and 11 ft deep; while the inner rampart has been ploughed down practically to ground level. Tactical considerations demand that the inner rampart should have continued along each of the long sides, and the curve of the ramaining segments is sufficient to allow this. The outer rampart also may have been extended along the edge of the scarp on the WNW; but there is no room for it on the ESE where, as already stated, the cliff forms a formidable obstacle. Both ramparts reappear in a better state of preservation in the wood at the NNE apex of the plateau, the outer mound measuring up to 35 ft in thickness at the base and 10 ft in height and the inner rampart up to 38 ft in thickness and 14 ft in height above the filling at the bottom of the medial ditch. At the foot of the outer rampart there are slight traces of a second ditch, and immediately beyond this two crescentic terraces have been scarped out of the hillside. The ramparts show no trace of built walling, and appear to be constructed simply of heaped earth and stones quarried from the ditches. Former cultivation has destroyed all trace of any structures within the interior, but the terraced track that leads up to the plateau from the Swinnie Burn may possibly be original since there is a similar feature at the comparable site on Worm Rig (RCAHMS 1956, no.34). The earthwork lacks Iron Age characteristics and several features, notably the absence of an external ditch at the SSW end and the resemblance of the ramparts to those at Lintalee (RCAHMS 1956, no.438), suggest a mediaeval date.

RCAHMS 1956.

This feature, generally as described by the RCAHMS, is almost certainly a fort. There seems little doubt that this is an Iron- Age promontory fort.

Resurveyed at 1/2500

Visited by OS (RD) 6 February 1967.