Blackcastle Hill

About 5/8 of a mile south-west of the previous fort, and near the western end of the Blackcastle Hill, at an elevation of 900 feet above sea level, is a fort sub-oval in plan (fig. 96), being wider towards the eastern end. The main axis is northeast and south-west, and internally it measures 170 feet in length by 150 feet across the centre. The fort is placed on the gentle western slope of the hill, the ground falling gradually to the north-west and to the south-west for a short distance, when it drops sharply for 400 feet. It is defended by a single rampart of earth, 11 feet broad for the greater part of its circumference, but broadening to a width of 17 feet on the south-west, near the centre of which is an entrance 7 feet wide. Inside the rampart is a ditch 6 feet broad and 9 inches deep, the soil from which has apparently been used in making the rampart, which rises at most about 2 feet above the bottom of the ditch. Outside the lower or western arc of the fort, at a distance of 22 feet from the wall, are four short mounds,15 feet broad, with a trench outside each, 7 feet broad and 1 ½ feet deep. These mounds are 1 ½ feet high on the inside and rise 4 feet above the bottom of the trenches. The eastern is 34 feet in length and the others are 58 feet,17 feet and 30 feet respectively, while they are20 feet, 25 feet and 44 feet apart, the northern end of the third being in line with the southern side of the entrance to the fort. Within the fort, to the south of the entrance, is a hut circle,20 feet in diameter internally and Ii feet deep, showing several large stones in the wall, which is 3 feet broad. The entrance, which is to the south-east, is 3 feet in width. Running along the eastern flank, 18 feet distant from the wall, is an excavated curved hollow some 42feet in length, 12 feet in breadth, and about9 inches in depth, which has been entered from the south. About 20 feet from the inner end there seems to have been a partition thrown out from the western side of the hollow, and there is slight evidence of a hut circle having existed between the entrance to this hollow and the hut circle near the entrance.

RCAHMS 1924, visited 26 June 1913.

Unfinished Fort, Blackcastle Hill, No.2 (Inventory No. 89).

The Inventory account and plan are correct except from the following points:

(i) A quarry ditch should have been shown inside the inner rampart.

(ii) The sections of the outer ramparts and ditch should have been closed at the ends since they are all pieces of an unfinished rampart and complete in themselves.

(iii) The larger hut shown on the plan is present, although it is probably secondary since its entrance (not shown on the plan) faces SE, away from the entrance to the fort, fronting a depressed area at the opposite end of which there may have been a similar hut. The two doubtful huts marked on the plan do not in fact exist.

(iv) The isolated segment of ditch inside the inner rampart is longer than it appears on the plan (actually 50 ft in length), and is open at the SW end although closed at the opposite end. It looks like an early attempt at the construction of defences which miscarried.

Summary. The inner rampart, which was probably originally boulder-faced, can only have bounded a homestead, especially as there is no ditch apart from the internal quarry trench. The unfinished rampart and ditch outside suggest a conversion process, similar to that observed at Hayhope (Roxburghshire) [NT81NE 18], which was never completed. It is just possible that the huts belong to the first phase, but their peculiar siting and the arrangement of the entrance suggest that they may be of later date.

Visited by RCAHMS (KAS) 5 October 1954.

Identified as an ancient fortification on the Armstrongs' Map of the Three Lothians, the enclosure that stands on the NW tip of the crest of Blackcastle Hill is at best a minor settlement enclosure, but around its SW quarter there are the remains of a discontinuous arc of rampart and ditch which may be part of a larger unfinished work enclosing the SW tip of the crest of this steep-sided hill. Comprising a bank rising no more than 1.2m above the bottom of an external ditch about 2m in breadth by 0.5m in depth, the projection of the arc would have enclosed an area about 75m in diameter (0.42ha), though no trace of any other elements of such an enclosure were noted when a plan was drawn up by RCAHMS investigators in 1913, and the surrounding area has been ploughed and re-seeded on numerous occasions since 1946. The perimeter of the enclosure that now occupies most of the area forms a low bank little over 3m in thickness and apparently has been built of material from an internal quarry; at some 1.8m broad by 0.2m deep, the latter is little more than a turf-stripping scar, and as such perhaps suggests a comparatively recent enclosure for this enclosure. Nevertheless, it measures about 50m in diameter and has an entrance on the WSW, and it is generally accepted as a late Iron Age homestead containing traces of two stone-founded round-houses and an arc of ditch of unknown purpose (Feachem 1963, 121-2).

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 08 September 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3927