Tynron Doon

'A very conspicuous object in the landscape for miles around' . . . and 'the most important fortress . . . . in the county' is how the qualities of this iron-age hillfort were summarised in the offIcial Inventory of monuments in Dumfriesshire. It occupies the summit of a steep-sided spur of Auchengibbert Hill and stands to a height of 289m OD. Its superb natural defences attracted further use of the site down to early moden times.

The summit plateau is sub-oval on plan, measuring about 45m by 40m, and is surrounded by a boulderstone wall. A hut circle, 4.6m in diameter, lies immediately to the east of the entrance, which is in the southern sector, and the interior contains other circular house stances. An L-plan tower-house, built before the last decade of the 1Gth century, stood at the north-western corner, and a stretch of lime-mortared walling along the south-eastern side, reported in 1920, was probably a fragment of its enclosure-wall.

A natural terrace on the north-eastern side below the summit has been bounded by a stony parapet, but man-made defences are otherwise confirmed to the western and south-western slopes. Very impressive they are too, comprising a stepped series of boldly scarped ramparts of earth and splintered rock gathered up from the intervening hollows. The lowest ditch or trench is rock-cut for most of its length.

The small finds recovered from the site and the surrounding slopes have a wide date-range. They include a signifIcant proportion of material attributed to the Early Historic or 'Dark Age' period. Prominent among these was a portion of a gold filigree panel of a bracteate pendant of 6th-8th century date (Nithsdale District Museum, Dumfries).

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Dumfries and Galloway’, (1986).

Occupying the conspicuous summit of the steep eastern spur of Auchengibbert Hill, this massively built fort commands extensive views over the country to the S and E. The main lines of defence lie on the SW quarter, blocking the easiest line of approach across the saddle with Auchengibbert Hill, and comprising at least three ramparts with internal quarry ditches. The ramparts are particularly massive in comparison to other forts in the Galloway, standing up to 6.5m in external height, and together with the rock-cut ditches from 7m to 15m in breadth between them, create a formidable belt of defences up to 60m deep on this side. The terminals of all the ramparts turn inwards to either side of the entrance on the SW, to form an entrance way some 50m in length, though rather than an inturned entrance as such, the innermost pair are more likely to be the returns around the terminal of the innermost ditch to meet an inner rampart obscured by the construction of what is probably a medieval or post-medieval castle within the interior. On the N the outer defences rest on the lip of the steep slope forming this flank of the hill, while on the S they peter out on the slope beyond the entrance, but on the NE what may be the innermost rampart extends round the margin of the summit, and an outer rampart loops out to take in a lower terrace. The course of the probable inner rampart and the original extent of the interior are difficult to determine, but an area measuring about 50m from NE to SW by 40m transversely (0.17ha) was probably enclosed on the summit. The character of the later castle is not altogether clear, but a ruinous wall on which in 1912 Alexander Curle observed traces of lime mortar (RCAHMS 1920, 207-8, no.609) forms an oval enclosure measuring internally 45m from NE to SW by 39m transversely; adjacent to the entrance it incorporates a circular structure 8.5m in internal diameter. Two trial pits sunk in the 1967 within the fort, one in the terminal of the middle ditch adjacent to the entrance, and the other immediately outside the wall of the castle on the SW, produced several pieces of vitrifaction, along with evidence of the medieval occupation. Midden material believed to have derived from the occupation of the interior was also recovered in 1964 and 1967 by excavation in the scree below the defences on the S; some of this material probably relates to the use of the site as a castle, but it also included glass beads of early medieval date (Williams 1971). Williams believed that the late 8th-century fragments of gilded copper-alloy sheets bearing vine-scroll and figurative decoration, which were found in 1924 in Tynron (De Paor 1963; Webster and Backhouse 1991, 173-5, no.135), came from these screes, though there is no evidence this was the case.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 04 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0326