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Little Airds Hill

Fort (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Little Airds Hill

Classification Fort (Period Unassigned)

Canmore ID 64861

Site Number NX84NW 3

NGR NX 8207 4871

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/64861

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

Administrative Areas

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

Archaeology Notes

NX84NW 3 8207 4871

(NX 8207 4871) Fort, Little Airds Hill: A multivallate native fort, curvilinear on plan, measuring internally 220' E-W by 170' transversely. The hill rises to 275' O.D. and is round topped with moderately steep sides: the N flank has formerly been planted with trees, but is now covered with bracken and scrub, while the rest is rough pasture.

The only certain surviving traces of the fort are three terraces, the artifically levelled platforms on which the ramparts were based. The innermost terrace is drawn round the shoulder of the hill and exhibits only a single gap, 20' wide, to the SE. The next terrace, presumably once continuous, now no longer visible inside the plantation, lies at a vertical distance of 10-17' further down the slope, while the third terrace, more fragmentary still, lies 15-25' below it, and actually descends to the base of the hill on the NW. A fourth terrace, which strikes off from the third at the latter point and thence runs South along the foot of the hill just outside the cultivated land may be coeval with the rest and designed to carry a loop-rampart round this flank. It is equally possible that this is merely a terraced track similar to the one that skirts the cultivated land on the SE of the hill. Where best preserved, the terraces measure from 10-15' in width, but at only two places do they show any structural remains. Thus on the SE side the outer edge of terrace B is bordered by a line of boulders, 25' long, which may be either the kerb of an earthen rampart or the foundation course of a stone wall.

Similarly two set stones occur, 40' apart, on the outer margin of the third terrace on the SW side of the hill. The entrances to the fort are not apparent, and there are no signs of internal buildings.

RCAHMS typescript, 1953.

Generally as described by RCAHMS The fourth terrace is almost certainly a relatively modern terraced track. The entrance is probably in the SW.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (RD) 12 August 1969.

Activities

Field Visit (8 August 1953)

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.

Reference (1957)

This site is noted in the ‘List of monuments discovered during the survey of marginal land (1951-5)’ (RCAHMS 1957, xiv-xviii).

Information from RCAHMS (GFG), 24 October 2012.

Note (20 December 2013 - 23 May 2016)

This fort occupies the summit of a hillock immediately inland from the coastal cliffs. Sub-oval on plan, the interior measures about 65m from ESE to WNW by 50m transversely (0.29ha) and the defences comprise up to three ramparts, though they are heavily robbed and largely reduced to terraces fronted with stony scarps; furthermore, the innermost is overridden along its ENE flank by a later field-bank, the middle rampart lies beneath the stone dyke that formed the boundary of a plantation on this side of the hillock, and the outermost is now visible only on the NE and SW. Nevertheless the innermost, set on the shoulder of the hillock, and the middle rampart below it, almost certainly formed complete circuits. The position of the entrance is unclear, and though the plan prepared by RCAHMS in 1953 shows a gap in the innermost rampart on the SE, in 1969 the OS surveyor preparing the 1:2500 depiction suggested that it probably lay on the SW.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 23 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0307

References

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