Castle Knowe

Castle Knowe NT 2299 6404 NT26SW 21

This palisaded settlement is situated on the shoulder of the hill overlooking Castle Law fort (NT26SW 2) from the NE. On the Sand W, where the ground falls steeply, no traces of any defence survive, but on the N two palisade trenches are visible, set about 6m apart. The interior measures 70m by at least 30m, and at the top of the steep slope on the S the positions of at least three timber houses are marked by small platforms. Part of the outer palisade trench is obscured by the upcast from slit-trenches dug during military exercises. On the NE, however, the line of the palisade is continued by a low bank, with an external ditch and a counterscarp bank at its E end; while this latter feature may be an unfinished defensive work, it may also be explained as an attempt to enhance the defences of the entrance, which was probably at this end of the settlement. Evidence of later activity on the site is provided by rig-and-furrow cultivation, which has obliterated part of the perimeter on the E; there is also a short length of ditch and bank some 30m to the NE.

RCAHMS 1988

(Feachem 1971, 30)

Earthworks on the crest of Castle Knowe, which overlooks the fort at Castle Law (Atlas No.3710), have been claimed to be the remains of an unfinished fort (Feachem 1971, 30), comprising a marker trench and partly-dug segments of ditch with an internal bank, but detailed planning in 1981 revealed the scuffed tracks of tracked vehicles turning across the western segments of the ditch, which also contain a series of sharply rectangular cuts on plan; there is a strong possibility that some of these elements were created for military training exercises. Nevertheless, within the area enclosed by these works there are also traces of a palisaded enclosure, its trench extending round the WSW end of the hillock and up the NNW flank to disappear beneath later cultivation rigs at the ENE end. Oval on plan, it measures about 70m from ENE to WSW by 30m transversely (0.2ha), and contains at least three small platforms set along the lip of the steep SSE flank of the hillock, two of which have shallow encircling shelves cut into the slope at the rear and almost certainly mark the positions of timber round-houses. The existence of this palisaded enclosure on the hillock, however, may also indicate that the military interventions have adapted and modified a pre-existing earthwork, and it is notable that despite its sharp profile, the feature identified as the marker trench, which appears stratigraphically earlier than the segments of earthwork, lies concentric to the palisade trench in the interior. Rather than a marker trench, perhaps this is another palisade trench set some 6m outside the inner. Furthermore, the profiles of the easternmost segment of ditch, which is also the longest, extending round the N flank, are more rounded, and it is possibly overridden by the cultivation rigs. The true character of these remains can only be established by excavation, but the concept adopted by Richeard Feachem (1971) of a marker trench linking the unfinished segments of rampart, based on observations at Ladle Hill in Hampshire, seems an unlikely explanation of these minor earthworks. Perhaps more likely is an enclosure defended by two palisades, the outer of which was enhanced with a shallow ditch and flanking bank adjacent to an entrance in the ENE end; and it is this that was subsequently adapted for military training.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3712