Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Highland HER MHG3937 (None)
NMR: NH 63 SE 29 (13210)
SM: None
NGR: NH 6766 3341
X: 267660 Y: 833410 (OSGB36)
This fort is situated on a steep-sided hillock above the SE bank of the River Nairn SW of Tordarroch House. Oval on plan, it measures about 37m from NE to SW by 30m transversely within a heavily robbed wall reduced to little more than a line of boulders marking the line of the outer face with in places a thin spread of wall-core about 3m thick. The wall generally follows the margin of the relatively flat summit area of the hillock, but on the NW it drops down the slope to exploit the lip of an almost precipitous slope. The wall was sectioned on the ENE by Laurie Maclagan Wedderburn in 1975, but the claim that this trench revealed evidence of an outer wall is probably unfounded, the inner wall being that of an oval structure visible within the interior of the fort (Wedderburn and Grime 1975). The entrance is probably on the E where the terminals of the wall are staggered slightly to either side of a gap pierced by a hollowed trackway. Within the interior on the SW there are traces of nine shallow hollows that probably mark the positions of storage pits associated with a nearby post-medieval township, while on the NE the excavation trench dug in 1975 clips the NE end of the oval enclosure, which measures some 12m in length by 7m in breadth within a stony bank.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -467803 Y: 7836520 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -4.202344352874711 Latitude: 57.37192375978873 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Highland
Historic County: Inverness-shire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Daviot And Dunlichity
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: 200.0m
N/A
There are neither stratified artefacts nor radiocarbon dates to provide a chronology for the defences.
Reliability: D - None
| Pre 1200BC | ✗ |
| 1200BC - 800BC | ✗ |
| 800BC - 400BC | ✗ |
| 400BC - AD50 | ✗ |
| AD50 - AD400 | ✗ |
| AD400 - AD 800 | ✗ |
| Post AD800 | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✓ |
| Pre Hillfort: | None |
| Post Hillfort: | Overlain by post-medieval storage pits and probably an oval structure |
None
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1972): | Discovery and description, and surveyed at 1:2500 by the OS |
| Excavation (1975): | Evaluation trench (Wedderburn and Grime 1975) |
| Other (1989): | Description by GUARD (RCAHMS MS550) |
| Other (1992): | Description by RCAHMS |
| Other (2005): | Site visit by J Wood (2005; RCAHMS MS 2379) |
Featureless apart from later storage pits and an oval structure
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Oval structure
| No Known Features | ✗ |
| Round Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Rectangular Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Curvilinear Platforms | ✗ |
| Other Roundhouse Evidence | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
None
| 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 | ✗ |
None
| No Known Finds | ✓ |
| Pottery | ✗ |
| Metal | ✗ |
| Metalworking | ✗ |
| Human Bones | ✗ |
| Animal Bones | ✗ |
| Lithics | ✗ |
| Environmental | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
NO APPARENT FEATURES
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✓ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
See main summary
| 1: | Heavily degraded all round the circuit |
| 2: | None |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Simple Gap (East): | Slight stagger in the terminals to either side of the gap |
Single wall
| Area 1: | 0.08ha. |
| Total: | 0.08ha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✓ | None |
| NE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SW Quadrant: | 1 |
| NW Quadrant: | 1 |
| Total: | 1 |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✓ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
None
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✗ |
| Stone Wall | ✓ |
| Rubble | ✗ |
| Wall-walk | ✗ |
| Evidence of Timber | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✗ |
| Berm | ✗ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| 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: None
| ✗ | None |
Wedderburn and Grime, L M M and D M (1975) 'Strathnairn, Tordarroch, fort?'. Disc Exc Scot (1975), 26
Wood, J (2005) 'Tordarroch, Highland (Daviot & Dunlichity parish), survey'. Disc Exc Scot, New Ser, 6 (2005), 79
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