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Arden

Fort (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Arden

Classification Fort (Period Unassigned)

Alternative Name(s) Campbelltown Mote

Canmore ID 64045

Site Number NX65SE 1

NGR NX 6587 5395

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/64045

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Dumfries And Galloway
  • Parish Twynholm
  • Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
  • Former District Stewartry
  • Former County Kirkcudbrightshire

Archaeology Notes

NX65SE 1 6587 5395.

(NX 6587 5395) Mote (NR)

OS 6" map (1910)

Campbelltown Mote is a small double-trenched structure which measures overall about 178 feet NE to SW and 135 feet NW to SE. The summit measures 94 by 53 feet and has been partially quarried away. The ramparts, distinct on the north, fade away at the sides and appear only as terraces on the south.

F R Coles 1893

The fort known as Campbelltown Mote is an isolated hillock with a maximum height of about 22 feet. Some 10 feet in from the edge along the west side of the oval summit there is a trace of the inner face of a stone rampart or wall, and, there is a less distinct stony mound on the east side, towards the south end. At each end below the scarp of the summit there is a double rampart, and at the south end a terrace some 8 to 10 feet in width above the finial slope to the bottom of the hillock. Along the sides where the slope is steep these defences gradually die out. The ramparts appear to have been formed of earth and stone.

RCAHMS 1914, visited 1911.

As described by RCAHMS. The fort is best preserved at the north end; on the east and west sides the defences are generally indistinct. Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 28 January 1965

Activities

Field Visit (12 June 1951)

This site was included within the RCAHMS Marginal Land Survey (1950-1962), an unpublished rescue project. Site descriptions, organised by county, are available to view online - see the searchable PDF in 'Digital Items'. These vary from short notes, to lengthy and full descriptions. Contemporary plane-table surveys and inked drawings, where available, can be viewed online in most cases - see 'Digital Images'. The original typecripts, notebooks and drawings can also be viewed in the RCAHMS search room.

Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 19 July 2013.

Field Visit (24 April 2012)

The small oval fort, barely measuring 23m from N to S by 8m internally, is generally as described, though on the date of visit it was heavily shrouded in gorse. However, the inner rampart or bank on the E appears to have been cast down, possibly in preparation for the construction of a small circular timber building, the stance for which has been built over it on the SE. There is a row of three more stances, measuring up to 6m in diameter, in the W part of the interior, their back edges cutting into the foot of the rampart.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, IP, GG)

Note (20 December 2013 - 23 May 2016)

This small fortification invests a rocky knoll in the undulating countryside around Twynholm. Oval on plan, its defences comprise two ramparts and ditches, the outer with a counterscarp bank, which enclose an area measuring little more than 23m from N to S by 8m transversely (0.014ha). On the W the innermost rampart measures at least 3m in thickness, and the sections drawn by RCAHMS investigators in 1911 indicate that a ditch has been cut into the slope of the knoll below it, though its course on the E and W is indicated only by the terrace marking the line of the middle rampart (RCAHMS 1914, 271, no.473, fig 182). Likewise an outer ditch visible on the N and S can be traced round the foot of the knoll on the W. The position of the entrance is unknown. In 2012 RCAHMS noted three circular stances up to 6m in diameter are cut back into the tail of the innermost rampart on the W side of the interior, and a fourth overlying the rampart on the SE; the date and purpose of these are unknown, but if Frederick Coles was correct that the rampart had been quarried for stone for field-dykes (1893, 144), they may be relatively recent features.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 23 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0250

References

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