Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Highland HER MHG44797 (None)
NMR: NC 40 SW 3 (4874)
SM: 5302
NGR: NC 4104 0088
X: 241040 Y: 900888 (OSGB36)
This fortification occupies the summit of a steep-sided hillock overlooking the right bank of the River Oykell to the W of Langwell. The defences comprise two elements: a circular dun with a heavily vitrified wall at the W end of the crest; and a larger fort that takes in the whole of the elongated crest of the hillock. The dun, which overlies the inner wall of the fort, measures about 15m in diameter within a wall 5m in thickness and standing some 2m high internally, with well-built faces encasing the heavily vitrified core; its entrance is on the E and has a guard chamber. Excavations carried out by Helen Nisbet 1973-4 revealed a complex history of occupation of the dun both before and after the fire that partly destroyed the wall. The defences of the fort comprise three circuits, the inner two marked by thin bands of rubble and the outer by a marked scarp, a cut feature which in places develops into a ditch with a counterscarp bank. The interior measures about 80m from ENE to WSW by about 24m transversely (0.15ha), taking in both the low summits on the crest of the hillock. There was probably an entrance on the S, though the outer circuit is unbroken on this flank, but there is also evidence of an entrance through the middle wall at the ENE end, though the depiction of the wall with hornworks on the plan published by Nisbet is ambiguous (1994, 53, fig 2). Nisbet sectioned the inner wall on the S, not only showing that it had been heavily robbed, but that the rubble overlay 'at least two occupation horizons' (1994, 51), indicating that the defences themselves may represent several periods of construction. The main finds from the excavations were a hones and hammerstones, but a serpentine bead, a bone bead and an iron knife blade were found, while a fragment of shale bracelet came from outside the dun. The only radiocarbon dates are now old dates, probably indicating that the dun belongs in the last quarter of the 1st millennium BC, while the attempt to date the destruction of the dun by thermoluminescence should be discounted.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -521976 Y: 7960781 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -4.688988813911651 Latitude: 57.96886967419346 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Highland
Historic County: Ross-shire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Kincardine (Sutherland)
None
| Extant | ✓ |
| Cropmark | ✗ |
| Likely Destroyed | ✗ |
None
| Woodland | ✗ |
| Commercial Forestry Plantation | ✗ |
| Parkland | ✗ |
| Pasture (Grazing) | ✓ |
| Arable | ✗ |
| Scrub/Bracken | ✓ |
| Bare Outcrop | ✗ |
| Heather/Moorland | ✓ |
| Heath | ✗ |
| Built-up | ✗ |
| Coastal Grassland | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| Contour Fort | ✓ |
| Partial Contour Fort | ✗ |
| Promontory Fort | ✗ |
| Hillslope Fort | ✗ |
| Level Terrain Fort | ✗ |
| Marsh Fort | ✗ |
| Multiple Enclosure Fort | ✗ |
| Hilltop | ✓ |
| Coastal Promontory | ✗ |
| Inland Promontory | ✗ |
| Valley Bottom | ✗ |
| Knoll/Hillock/Outcrop | ✗ |
| Ridge | ✗ |
| Cliff/Plateau-edge/Scarp | ✗ |
| Hillslope | ✗ |
| Lowland | ✗ |
| Spur | ✗ |
Dominant Topographic Feature: None
| North | ✗ |
| Northeast | ✗ |
| East | ✗ |
| Southeast | ✗ |
| South | ✗ |
| Southwest | ✗ |
| West | ✗ |
| Northwest | ✗ |
| Level | ✓ |
Altitude: 47.0m
N/A
Old c14 dates in the final quarter of the 1st millennium BC, indicating an earlier history for the fort.
Reliability: B - Medium
| Pre 1200BC | ✗ |
| 1200BC - 800BC | ✗ |
| 800BC - 400BC | ✗ |
| 400BC - AD50 | ✓ |
| AD50 - AD400 | ✗ |
| AD400 - AD 800 | ✗ |
| Post AD800 | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Pre Hillfort: | None |
| Post Hillfort: | None |
| C14: | Five dates in all, one apparently a contaminated re-run sample |
The RCAHMS collection holds the excavation archive.
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1966): | Description and discovery by Keith Blood of the OS. Surveyed at 1:2500 by the OS |
| Excavation (1973): | Excavation and outline survey (Nisbet 1973; 1994; RCAHMS DC43920) |
| Excavation (1974): | Excavation (Nisbet 1974; 1994) |
| Other (1976): | Surveyed at 1:10,000 by the OS |
| Other (1992): | Scheduled |
Featureless apart from the later dun
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Western end occupied by the dun
| No Known Features | ✗ |
| Round Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Rectangular Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Curvilinear Platforms | ✗ |
| Other Roundhouse Evidence | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
The excavation mainly relates to the later dun
| No Known Excavation | ✗ |
| Pits | ✓ |
| Postholes | ✓ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
| Nothing Found | ✗ |
None
| No Known Geophysics | ✓ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
| Nothing Found | ✗ |
Hammer-stones and numerous whetstones. Otherwise only an iron knife blade, a serpentine bead and a fragment of shale bracelet, this last from outside the dun
| No Known Finds | ✗ |
| Pottery | ✗ |
| Metal | ✓ |
| Metalworking | ✓ |
| Human Bones | ✗ |
| Animal Bones | ✗ |
| Lithics | ✓ |
| Environmental | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Western end occupied by the dun
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
See main summary
| 2: | Circuits intermittently visible |
| 2: | None |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Simple Gap (South): | Through inner walls |
| 2. Simple Gap (East): | None |
| 2. Hornwork (East): | Ambiguous depiction of entrance with hornworks (Nisbet 1994, 53, fig 2) |
Two walls and an outer ditch. The inner wall overlay evidence of occupation, suggesting that at least one of the outer circuits may have been a free-standing fortification. Here considered as two univallate enclosures.
| Area 1: | 0.15ha. |
| Area 2: | 0.4haf. |
| Total: | 0.4ha. |
Total Footprint Area: 0.8ha.
None
| ✓ | Wall of the dun is discounted |
| ✓ | Wall of the dun is excluded |
| NE Quadrant: | 2 |
| SE Quadrant: | 2 |
| SW Quadrant: | 2 |
| NW Quadrant: | 2 |
| Total: | 2 |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✓ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
While vitrification was initially claimed from the fort defences, none was located by Nisbet. Contrastingly the dun wall displays massive vitrifaction.
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✗ |
| Stone Wall | ✗ |
| Rubble | ✓ |
| Wall-walk | ✗ |
| Evidence of Timber | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✗ |
| Berm | ✗ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
The fort defences were heavily robbed and no structural elements survived in situ and there was no evidence of in situ vitrifaction, unlike the dun on the summit.
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✗ |
| Stone Wall | ✓ |
| Murus Duplex | ✗ |
| Timber-framed | ✗ |
| Timber-laced | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✗ |
| Berm | ✗ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| No Known Excavation | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
| ✗ | None |
| ✓ | None |
Number of Ditches: 1
| ✗ | None |
Nisbet, H C (1973) 'Langwell Tor a' Chorcain: hill fort and vitrified dun'. Disc Exc Scot (1973), 48-9
Nisbet, H C (1974) 'Langwell, Tor a' Chorain: vitrified dun'. Disc Exc Scot (1974), 59-60
Nisbet, H C (1994) 'Excavation of a vitrified dun at Langwell, Strath Oykel, Sutherland'. Glasgow Archaeol J 19 (1994), 51-73
Atlas of Hillforts:
Wikidata:
This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
and should be cited as:
Lock, Gary and Ralston, Ian. 2024. Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. Available at: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk
Document Version 1.1