Kemp's Graves, Glenhead Of Aldouran

NX06SW 3 0078 6352.

(NX 0078 6351) Fort (NR)

OS 1:10000 map (1978)

Promontory Fort (R W Feachem 1956), "Kemp's Graves", situated on the top of a high bank in the angle of a burn.

The fort is formed of three ramparts, separated, the first and second, by a broad level area and, the second and third, by a trench, having a harp-shaped area in the rear, measuring along a line parallel to the ramparts 129' and at right angles thereto at centre 45'. Along the flanks the position has been protected by a wall connecting the ends of the ramparts and seemingly about 6'6" in thickness. The thickness of each rampart at base has been about 18'. The outer one measures up to about 6'6" high, and is between 30 and 60' from the second. At 63' along the outer rampart from the west end there is a break, or entrance 12' wide, flanked for a distance of some 23' by a return of the rampart on the west side. This flanking defence is not continued, however, to meet the intermediate mound, but stops at about 8' from it.

The intermediate rampart is somewhat lower than those on either side, measuring about 3'9" in height on the outside, and 4' on the inside. The ditch, which separates the middle from the inner line, measures 26' across at the west end, and, owing to the deflection of the intermediate rampart, 20' at the east; it is some 5'6" in depth below the crest of the scarp.

The inner rampart is some 3'6" in height above the interior. Along the scarp of the middle rampart there appears to have been a wall some 6'6" thick. On the west (north-west) the defences come to the very edge of the steep bank, but on the east, between the end of the outer rampart and the sloping side of the glen, there is a slight terrace along which the approach probably led to the interior.

The fort is situated in a wood, and the ramparts are in places so overgrown with shrubs and thicket that surveying and levelling were a matter of considerable difficulty.

RCAHMS 1912

A small promontory fort, generally as described by RCAHMS, except that the entrances to the middle and inner ramparts were probably at the NW end where there are distinct gaps between the ramparts and the steep natural slopes; the terrace on the S (not E) is later.

The name 'Kemp's Graves' could not be confirmed locally.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (RD) 19 February 1968

A steep-sided promontory on the N side of Aldouran Glen has been cut off from the NE by a substantial earthwork comprising three ramparts with medial ditches. The earthwork now stands in a clearing in a coniferous plantation, and at the date of visit may of its details were obscured by a luxuriant growth of bracken. The wedge-shaped interior, however, measures 27m from NE to SW by a maximum of 23m transversely, and the entrance is at the NW end of the defences, where both the ramparts and ditches stop short of the edge of the promontory. The inner rampart measures 5.4m in thickness by 0.8m in height and its external ditch is 5.5m broad by 0.7m deep. The middle rampart, which is seperated from the inner ditch by a narrow berm, measures 3.8m by 0.7m at the entrance but reduces in size to 2.7m by 0.5m towards the SE; the outer rampart measures 4.7m by 1m at the entrance and also reduces in size towards the SE, becoming a scarp up to 2.3m high externally and returning along the S side of the promontory to unite with the middle rampart. Between the two outer ramparts there appears to be a broad flat- bottomed ditch which varies from 8.3m in breadth at the NW end to 15.5m at the SE end. There is a modern gap in the outer rampart on the NE.

The date of this earthwork is unknown, but the arrangement of the ramparts and ditches is unlike that of any of the prehistoric fortifications on the Rhins.

RCAHMS 1985, visited (SH) October 1984.