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Ward Law
Beacon (Period Unassigned), Fort (Prehistoric), Plantation Bank (Post Medieval)
Site Name Ward Law
Classification Beacon (Period Unassigned), Fort (Prehistoric), Plantation Bank (Post Medieval)
Alternative Name(s) Wardlaw
Canmore ID 66099
Site Number NY06NW 5
NGR NY 02457 66692
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/66099
- Council Dumfries And Galloway
- Parish Caerlaverock
- Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
- Former District Nithsdale
- Former County Dumfries-shire
NY06NW 5 02457 66692
(NY 0244 6669) Camp (NR)
OS 6" map (1957)
Fort, measuring 210' by 180' within two much worn ramparts, now planted with trees. Truckell notes in 1948 suggestions of a signal station built on to the rampart of the Wardlaw Iron Age fort, and Wardlaw is listed by Hewison as a 15th century beacon height.
RCAHMS 1920; R W Feachem 1963; A E Truckell 1950; J K Hewison 1912.
This fort crowns the terminal feature of the ridge running SSE from Dumfries between the River Nith and the Lochar Moss. It measures 210 ft (64m) by 180 ft (54.8m) within two much worn ramparts, and has been planted with trees. Its interest lies in its situation, commanding the narrowing Solway Firth, and in the presence of a Roman fort (sic: NY06NW 4), now ploughed out almost to obliteration, only a few yards to the N.
R W Feachem 1963.
The remains of this fort are as described above. There are no traces of the possible signal station built on to the rampart at NY 0244 6672, the highest part of the fort. Mr A E Truckell has confirmed the location, but states that the site is only conjectural at present.
Revised at 25".
Visited by OS (WDJ) 11 August 1965
Field Visit (24 July 1912)
Fort, Ward Law.
The Wardlaw Hill, which rises to a height of 313 feet over sea level, overlooks the Castle of Caerlaverock, from which it is distant about 1 mile, and commands also a prospect over a great extent of surrounding country. It is surmounted by an oval fort ([plan] fig. 25) surrounded by a rampart of stone and earth, with a terrace or trench now filled in, before it, some 18 feet broad, having a mound on the outer edge or counterscarp. The enceinte has its longest axis north and south, measures some 210 feet by 180 feet, and rises in elevation towards the north. The rampart along the north arc at the edge of the interior is scarcely perceptible, but around the lower part of the periphery it the inner side, and a ramp some 8 feet in height to the terrace, which lies at a general level of 6 feet above the ground outside. There is an entrance from the west some 5 feet in width. On the north arc, in front of the highest point of the fort, and where the parapet is not observable, a slight mound is carried along the terrace some 15 feet out and 4 to 5 feet back from the edge, is brought forward to the edge as it passes eastward, and eventually merges in the inner mound beyond the prominence to the north on the east side.
RCAHMS 1920, visited 24 July 1912.
OS 6" map (Fort), Dumf., 2nd ed, (1900).
Note (20 May 2014 - 15 November 2016)
This fort is situated on the summit of Ward Law, which forms the S spur of a broad plateau with long slopes dropping away steeply on the E and S. The fort itself has been incorporated into a plantation enclosure, and measures 64m from NNW to SSE by 55m transversely (0.27ha) within two ramparts with external ditches; the inner, where best preserved, stands some 2.5m in height externally and its accompanying ditch is 5.5m in breadth. The outer ditch is only known from cropmarks, which have revealed its presence immediately outside the plantation boundary on the S. The plan prepared by RCAHMS about 1912 also shows on the NE quarter a bank crossing from the line of the outer rampart to that of the inner, perhaps suggesting that the fort is overlain by a later enclosure. There is an entrance on the W. A Roman temporary camp lies immediately to the N of the fort.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 15 November 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0846
