Beattock Summit

NS 998153. As a result of an inspection of air photographs a ring-ditched site near Beattock Summit, immediately to the E of the Roman road was discovered by Mr Maxwell. His limited excavation of this Roman road-post has revealed that the ditch measured 6' in maximum width by 1' in depth and enclosed a roughly circular area 24' in diameter; there was a gap on the W giving access to the road. Inside stood a timber watch-tower, approximately 10’ square in ground plan. The low lying position of the site seems to set it apart from the general run of Roman signal-stations. Publication will be in Volume I of the Lanarkshire Inventory.

DES 1966, 47

NS 999 153. Roman Watch-tower, Beattock Summit (Site): Inspection of air photographs taken by the RAF (541/A/530:3137-8) revealed the presence of a circular ditched enclosure some 430m E of Beattock Summit and 27m NE of Roman road RR 7f. The work was partially excavated by one of the Commission's officers in 1966 (Maxwell 1976) and shown to be a Roman watch-tower similar to those found on the Gask Ridge (Christison 1901), but it has now been almost totally destroyed by afforestation.

The ditch, which enclosed an area about 7m in diameter and measured 1.5m in average width by not more than 0.3m in depth, had presumably served for drainage rather than defence; it had been interrupted for an entrance approximately 1.5m wide on the SW, the side facing the road, and there were traces of a low, stony bank bordering its outer lip on the E and NW. The ground enclosed sloped comparatively steeply from NE to SW, and it had therefore been necessary to cut back into the hillside in order to secure a more level stance for the tower. The latter, a timber structure raised upon a framework of four uprights, each about 0.2m thick and square in cross-section, was centrally placed and was designed to be 3.2m square over all, but it had been slightly distorted in the process of laying it out; its basement floor consisted of a light pitching of stones.

Although no datable relics were found during the excavation, it seems probable that the tower, which exhibited only one period of occupation and had been deliberately dismantled on abandonment, was associated with the Antonine fortlet of Redshaw Brun (NT 01 SW 2) situated two and a half Roman miles (3.7 km) SE, along the Roman road. Its position, barely 30m above the valley floor, affords scarcely any outlook to NE and SW, and the main function of the tower must have been to keep watch and ward along the road leading to the fortlet from the NW. In dimensions and plan it closely resembles the watch-tower of White Type (NT01SE 2), lying a similar distance SE of Redshaw Burn.

RCAHMS 1978, visited November 1972.

NS91NE 11 9990 1532

No trace survives on the ground.

Visited by OS (JP), 4 April 1975.