Black Cairn
Fort (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Black Cairn
Classification Fort (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) The Ring
Canmore ID 30068
Site Number NO21NW 12
NGR NO 2334 1714
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/30068
- Council Fife
- Parish Abdie
- Former Region Fife
- Former District North East Fife
- Former County Fife
NO21NW 12 2334 1714.
(NO 234 172). This fort, formerly known as 'The Ring', is situated on the summit of Black Cairn Hill. It is oval in outline, bounded by a single stone wall, and measures internally 405' (123.5m) by 320' (97.5m). For a distance of 160' (48.8m) on the N side, where it skirted the base of a rock outcrop, the wall has completely vanished, and elsewhere it is reduced to a mere rickle of stones, a few facing stones which are still in position at the NE end indicate, however, that it was c.10' (3m) wide. Two gaps in the wall, on the NW and SE sides may represent original entrances, but the interior shows no signs of structures.
RCAHMS 1933; Information in RCAHMS typescript, 22 June 1954.
A fort generally as described by RCAHM, except that the NW gap may be modern.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (R D) 20 May 1970.
Publication Account (1933)
Fort, "The Ring," Newburgh".
“On Black Cairn, the highest point of the Ochils behind Newburgh, there is one of these rude stone entrenchments…encircling the summit….Since the plantation on the Black Cairn has grown up, the entrenchment around it has become moss-covered, and it is now scarcely known; but in the last generation it was familiarly known by the name of ‘The Ring’…and it is so designated (A.D. 1547) in the charter by the Abbot of Lindores, which confirms the possession of it to the burgesses of Newburgh, to whom it still belongs." The charter reads, "the stone circle situated on the ridge of the said hill, which is vulgarly called the Ring of Blackcarn." - Lindores Abbey and its Burgh of Newburgh, by Alexander Laing, F.S.A. Scot., pp. 5-7, and 482.
RCAHMS 1933
OS Map ref: vi S.W. (" Black Cairn ").
Field Visit (22 June 1954)
This site was included within the RCAHMS Marginal Land Survey (1950-1962), an unpublished rescue project.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.
Note (15 June 2015 - 18 May 2016)
Black Cairn Hill forms the highest part of Newburgh Common and is surmounted by a large oval fort measuring about 123m from NNE to SSW by 95m transversely (0.9ha) within a rampart reduced to little more than a band of stones. A sector on the N has been entirely removed, but a few facing-stones remain in place on the NE, indicating an original thickness of some 3m. There are entrances on the SE and WNW, though in the opinion of the OS surveyor in 1970 the latter may be relatively recent. A small quarry has also been dug across the line of the rampart on the SSW. Apart from a modern cairn marking the boundary between the parishes of Abdie and Newburgh, the interior is featureless.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3124
