Dunearn, Fort
Fort (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Dunearn, Fort
Classification Fort (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Dunearn Estate
Canmore ID 52860
Site Number NT28NW 8
NGR NT 2114 8729
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/52860
![Ink drawing [3]: fort at Dunearn. Redrawn from 1952 survey.](http://i.rcahms.gov.uk/canmore/l/DP00158214.jpg)
![Ink drawing [2]: fort at Dunearn.](http://i.rcahms.gov.uk/canmore/l/DP00158215.jpg)
![Ink drawing [3]: fort at Dunearn. Redrawn from 1952 survey.](http://i.rcahms.gov.uk/canmore/s/DP00158214.jpg)
![Ink drawing [2]: fort at Dunearn.](http://i.rcahms.gov.uk/canmore/s/DP00158215.jpg)
- Council Fife
- Parish Burntisland
- Former Region Fife
- Former District Kirkcaldy
- Former County Fife
NT28NW 8 2114 8729.
(NT 2114 8729) Fort (NR)
OS 6" map, (1967)
The summit of Dunearn Hill is occupied by an Early Iron Age (G S Maxwell 1969) fort measuring about 400' x 130' within the ruin of a heavy stone wall. The entrance, in the E, is protected by a long hornwork of slighter but still very stout proportions. This fort is overlain by an almost circular defensive enclosure of presumed post-Roman date (G S Maxwell 1969), measuring 120' in diameter within a wall about 12' thick. Maxwell notes also three unenclosed stone-walled huts, apparently built after the fort became disused, though their relationship to the circular enclosure is uncertain.
RCAHMS 1933; R W Feachem 1955; 1963; Information from R W Feachem; G S Maxwell 1969.
The fort and later enclosure are as described. To the NW on lower uneven ground at NT 2109 8735 are four stone-walled huts measuring between 8.0m and 10.0m in diameter over walls 1.2m thick. Each hut has been levelled into the SW-facing slope but there are no certain entrances.
Fort revised at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (J P) 24 June 1974.
Field Visit (6 May 1925)
Fort, Dunearn Hil1.
This fort lies immediately to the north of Dunearn House and about two miles to the north-west of the town of Burntisland, at an elevation of 700 feet above sea-level, on the crest of the highest eminence in the district. The position commands a wide view of the Firth of Forth, but the fort itself, which appears to have been of roughly circular form, is in such a ruinous condition that its general features can scarcely be recognised. On the south and west, where the ground rises abruptly and where the steep slopes are encumbered with outcrops of rock, it is particularly difficult to determine the limits of the enclosure, except for a short distance on the south-west. There seems to have been a fairly high wall on the north, where stronger defences would be required owing to the configuration of the ground, but the remains there are now amass of debris with no signs of building. On the east the outline is perhaps a little more definite, but the foundations are so much spread and so thickly covered with grass that it is impossible to obtain accurate measurements or to lay down a satisfactory plan. This, however, is the natural line of approach, and a slight gap with, here and there, indications of outworks of indefinite character and of no great size, may possible mark the entrance.
RCAHMS 1933, visited 6 May 1925.
Field Visit (6 August 1952)
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 July 2015 - 19 October 2016)
The remains of this fort are situated on the summit formed by the SW spur of Dunearn Hill, its defences comprising two main elements, namely a circular enclosure on the summit, and an earlier oval enclosure taking in the whole of the crest of the spur. The circular enclosure on the summit measures about 32m in diameter (0.08ha) within its wall and probably has an entrance on the E. The wall, which has been a substantial structure, is spread about 4m in thickness and has long runs of outer-facing-stones around its S flank and intermittently elsewhere on the E and N. The enclosure is set astride the interior of the earlier fort a little W of its centre, though the link between the two ends is not particularly clear on the plan drawn up by RCAHMS investigators in 1952 and the relationship between the two ends might prove more complex on excavation. Nevertheless, assuming that the two ends belong to the same defensive scheme, the interior of the earlier fort measures 120m from E to W by a maximum of 44m in breadth at the W end, its eastern portion tapering from 33m in breadth to 16m at the E end (0.39ha). Its defences comprise two ramparts, the inner following a sinuous line along the margin of the summit area of the hill, and the outer, which can be traced around the N, E and S flanks, an irregular course along terraces on the slopes below. A trackway which mounts the slope obliquely on the SE, piercing both ramparts, is probably an original entrance and exposes the visitor's right side. Little of the faces of either of these two ramparts can be seen, but at the entrance through the outer the face turns inwards on either side of the gap. Other gaps in the defences at the E end are probably more recent. Apart from an old observation post and a circular enclosure around a flagstaff overlying the W side of the circular summit enclosure, the interior is featureless. On a terrace on the NW, however, probably overlying the outer rampart of the fort, there is a contiguous row of at least three hut-circles; the OS surveyor revising the depiction in 1974 claimed to find a fourth.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 19 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3181
