Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Highland HER MHG8188 (None)
NMR: NH 67 NE 1 (13710)
SM: None
NGR: NH 6968 7687
X: 269680 Y: 876870 (OSGB36)
This fort displays some of the clearest evidence of its unfinished character to be found anywhere in Scotland. Occupying the crest of a steep-sided ridge towering above the river on the N side of Strath Rory, its unfinished defences comprise two elements: firstly a wall that was evidently intended to enclose the summit area of the ridge extending westwards from a precipitous cleft across its axis; and secondly a more ragged outer line contouring between 15m and 20m outside it. The inner wall, which was never begun along the S flank, displays a remarkable progression around the N flank, from 1.2m high and complete with wall core faced inside and out to a maximum thickness of 3.8m adjacent to the entrance on the W, to a sector where the facing blocks had been put in place without the full height of core and are now cowped backwards like stacked dominoes onto a layer of rubble, and finally tailing off into to the eastern sector where no more than a rough and intermittent band of rubble marks its course. The area to be enclosed measures about 220m from ENE to WSW by 80m transversely (1.6ha) and there may have been a second entrance at the E end of the N side. The outer line is of rather different character, comprising rubble pile crudely in places along the leading edge of a quarried terrace that has been cut back irregularly into the slope, but unlike the inner, this can also be traced along the S flank of the hill, turning sharply back at the W end no more than 10m outside the inner line. It too has an entrance at the W end, and possibly another opposite the gap in the inner at the E end. Nevertheless, the lines are sufficiently eccentric to each other that it is possible that they are not contemporary, in which case the continuous outer circuit suggests that it is the earlier, enclosing an area of about 2.2ha. The interior is rough and peat covered and generally obscured by deep heather.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -466664 Y: 7917613 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -4.19211083229458 Latitude: 57.76260718600955 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Highland
Historic County: Ross-shire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Logie Easter
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: 275.0m
N/A
In the absence of excavation, 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: | None |
Highland HER hold a range of photographs, and RCAHMS a fine series of aerial views taken in 2009
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1872): | Named and annotated Wall in Gothic type on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map (Ross-shire 1880, sheet 54.1) |
| Other (1899): | Description (Excursion notes in Inverness Sci Soc Fld Club v, 362-3) |
| Earthwork Survey (1958): | Plan and description for RCAHMS Survey of Marginal Lands (RCAHMS RCD 57/1 & DP157749; Feachem 1963, 149; 1971, 28-9) |
| Other (1970): | Visit and description by the OS |
| Other (1977): | Visited by RCAHMS |
| Other (1997): | Visited by the Hill-Fort Study Group |
Featureless
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| 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
| 2: | Incomplete circuit |
| 2: | In both circuits, though they may represent separate periods of construction |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Simple Gap (West): | Through inner wall, only N side built |
| 1. Simple Gap (West): | Gap in outer rampart |
| 2. Simple Gap (North east): | Through inner wall, but not built |
| 2. Simple Gap (North east): | Gap in outer rampart |
Two eccentric circuits, the inner very clearly unfinished
| Area 1: | 1.6ha. |
| Area 2: | 2.2ha. |
| Total: | 2.2ha. |
Total Footprint Area: 2.3ha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | No trace of defences at the precipitous E end |
| NE Quadrant: | 0 |
| SE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SW Quadrant: | 1 |
| NW Quadrant: | 2 |
| Total: | 2 |
| 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 | ✗ |
| ✓ | Feachem suggests that the ragged character of the quarrying to the rear of the outer line is a manifestation of gang working (1971) |
| ✗ | None |
Number of Ditches: None
| ✗ | None |
Feachem, R (1963) A guide to prehistoric Scotland. Batsford: London
Feachem, R W (1971) 'Unfinished hill-forts', in Hill, D and Jesson, M (eds) The Iron Age and its hill-forts: papers presented to Sir Mortimer Wheeler on the occasion of his eightieth year. Southampton
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