The Belt

This fort is situated on a steep-sided promontory on the escarpment rising up on the NE flank of the valley of the Nith. Rather than simply cutting off the easiest line of approach from the NE, however, the greater part of the interior was enclosed, only the NW sector apparently being left open. Having been under trees since at least the mid 19th century, the defences are imperfectly understood, their main features comprising an inner enclosure measuring about 46m from NE to SW by 33m transversely (0.12ha) within a thick stony rampart, with an outer rampart set up to 10m in front of it on the NE. The southern end of this outer rampart rests on the NE side of what was described by Alexander Curle in 1913 as a walled entrance passage about 3.5m wide leading up to the entrance through the inner rampart on the SE. He also described traces of three outer ramparts extending away from the SW side of this unusual feature around the S flank of the fort, the inner of which is depicted on the first OS 25-inch map (Dumfriesshire 1861, sheet 41.9), and on the strength of the length of the passage beyond the outer rampart on the NE, surmised that there must have been additional outer ramparts on this side too, though no trace of them survived. The OS found the site under dense vegetation when they came to revise the 1:2500 depiction in 1975 and could not detect either the outer defences on the S, or the stone hut-circles that Curle noted in the interior, one of which measured about 6m in overall diameter.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 23 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0337