Chippermore

NX24NE 11 2966 4831.

(NX 2966 4831) Earthwork (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

This feature, called a fort by the RCAHMS, and a stone-walled enclosure by Fiddes, is comparable with NX24NE 12, which is classified as a homestead by Feachem.

Before excavation by Fiddes in 1951, it did not appear to have been robbed, nor had its interior been ploughed. It proved to be egg-shaped, long axis 111ft and divided into two platforms with an entrance to the lower on the SE. A low cairn occupied the centre of the upper platform, which had been dug back into the slope and the spoil used to build up the downhill sector. The outer wall was well preserved to a height of 2ft except on the NW, though washed soil obscured the E side. The excavations showed that though the structure of this outer wall varied in detail, at all points except the NW it consisted of well laid inner and outer facings and a careless filling. It was 8ft thick and originally stood 4-6ft high at the up-slope facing. Its collapse was so complete that the upper courses probably consisted of alternate layers of turf and stones. In the NW, large and medium stones covered a large area, one or two deep. No wall-chamber was found to account for an increased wall-thickness, though there was one clearly-defined area of heavy paving with shells on and under the flat slabs. No convincing explanation can be given for the state of the wall here; perhaps neither the original wall nor the reconstruction was ever completed in this sector; or perhaps the reconstruction was more drastic here than elsewhere, and was not completed. Again stones may have been removed from this part of the wall when the dyke as built S of the site.

The lower platform was natural. No occupation levels were found. The roughly-laid wall (R on plan) was probably part of a medieval shelter. Two unidentifiable fragments of medieval pottery were found in its vicinity.

The upper platform was bounded on the E and N by the outer wall and on the W by a low partition wall. On the S, except at the ramp, the slope to the lower platform dropped 3ft in about 5ft and was well revetted with large stones. The cairn-like structure, 12ft in diameter and 2ft high, contained no burial of any kind, and must be a later intrusion. Traces of a hut were found in the NE at bedrock level, x and z on plan being probable post-sockets. The hut wall was built on a base of small stones set in a distinctive white clay.

This hut, and the occupation associated with the shell area in the NW must antedate the enclosure. The deposit of shells in the entrance was earlier than the reconstruction, and probably earlier than the original enclosure. The hut-dwellers used fire, but apparently not the eaters of shell-fish.

The levelling of the upper platform was associated with the building of the outer wall on the N and E, and at least the S side of the enclosure was completed at that time together with the entrance in the SE. In a later reconstruction, which was never completed, this entrance was blocked.

RCAHMS 1912, visited 1911; J Fiddes 1953

This excavated homestead is one of three very similar earthworks on the fertile southern slopes of Bennan Hill; two are at 102m amsl and the third lies at 67m (see NX24NE 10 and NX24NE 12 ). Continual stone dumping from field clearance in the area has partially covered, and in some cases, disfigured all three earthworks.

NX 2966 4832. This sub-oval homestead is levelled into the hill-slope and measures 23.5m E-W by 22.5m internally. Its stony bank is now spread to 6.0m wide and 0.7m high (although these dimensions are clearly exaggerated by stone dumping). On the west and east sides inner and outer facing stones are visible giving a wall width of 2.7m at these points (probably the true width of the bank). There is a blocked 1.7m wide entrance in the south east. The interior is divided by a stony scarp into two almost equal sized terraces.

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (TRG) 17 May 1977