Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland

SC2907: Dun Evan  

Sources: Esri, DigitalGlobe, Earthstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, GeoEye, USDA FSA, USGS, Getmapping, Aerogrid, IGN, IGP, and the GIS User Community

HER:  Highland HER MHG6906

NMR:  NH 84 NW 5 (15064)

SM:  2896

NGR:  NH 8275 4757

X:  282750  Y:  847570  (EPSG:27700)

Boundary:  

Summary

This fort is situated on the summit of rocky hill commanding wide views over the valley of the River Nairn. Its defences are evidently complex, comprising two main elements: an inner enclosure on the summit; and an outer enclosure set further down the slope. The inner enclosure, however, represents two phases of construction, the earlier of which, now reduced to no more than a stony scarp, probably extended around the lip of the whole of the summit, though it is only visible where it emerges from beneath the later on the NE and SW; it encloses an oval area measuring about 85m from NE to SW by 23m transversely (0.15ha). In the later phase a new circuit was erected on the summit, enclosing an area of much the same breadth but no more than 56m in length (0.1ha) within a wall reduced to a grass-grown bank about 10m in thickness and standing about 1.2m high externally; a hollow in the SW end of the interior may mark the position of a well, and the entrance is on the E, giving access to a path that doglegs down the slope and out along a terrace past the outer terminal of the outermost rampart on the NE. Comparatively massive, Angus Graham and Gordon Childe believed that some reddened fragments of stone they observed in the core of this inner wall in 1943 were comparable to heated stones they had seen on other vitrified forts elsewhere, but no other evidence of the vitrifaction claimed by John Williams in 1777 has been noted since. The main outer defence contours round the flanks of the hill to enclose an area measuring about 140m from NE to SW by 50m transversely (0.55ha). For the most part its rampart is reduced to a stony scarp, probably broken by an entrance on the SW, but from the N round to the NE it gradually increases in size to its terminal adjacent to the entrance track on the NE, and in places on the N the line of the outer face survives three courses high. At this entrance the wall appears to turn back towards the summit, flanking the entrance track as far as what appears to be the line of yet another intermediate defensive wall running round the slope on this side and lying concentrically to the earliest summit enclosure. The configuration of these heavily ruined defences, and another wall that drops down the slope between them, is not fully understood in the dense undergrowth that clothes the site, and rather than an elaboration of the entrance passage, which would be an unusual feature, it may be the remains of an independent rectangular enclosure overlying these two lines of defence. Apart from the inferred sequence between the two summit enclosures, their relationships to the other defences is unknown.

Status

Citizen Science:  ✗  

Reliability of Data:  Confirmed

Reliability of Interpretation:  Confirmed

Location

X:  -440643  Y:  7863668  (EPSG: 3857)

Longitude:  -3.958367  Latitude:  57.503183  (EPSG:4326)

Country:  Scotland

Current County or Unitary Authority:  Highland

Historic County:   Nairn

Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland:  Cawdor

Condition

Extant:  
Cropmark:  
Likely Destroyed:  

Land Use

Clearing in coniferous plantation

Woodland:  
Commercial Forestry Plantation:  
Parkland:  
Pasture (Grazing):  
Arable:  
Scrub/Bracken:  
Bare Outcrop:  
Heather/Moorland:  
Heath:  
Built-up:  
Coastal Grassland:  
Other:  

Landscape

Hillfort Type

Contour Fort:  
Partial Contour Fort:  
Promontory Fort:  
Hillslope Fort:  
Level Terrain Fort:  
Marsh Fort:  
Multiple Enclosure Fort:  

Topographic Position

Hilltop:  
Coastal Promontory:  
Inland Promontory:  
Valley Bottom:  
Knoll/Hillock/Outcrop:  
Ridge:  
Cliff/Plateau-edge/Scarp:  
Hillslope:  
Lowland:  
Spur:  

Dominant Topographic Feature:  

Aspect

North:  
Northeast:  
East:  
Southeast:  
South:  
Southwest:  
West:  
Northwest:  
Level:  

Elevation

Altitude:  205.0m

Boundary

Boundary Type:  

Second HER:  

Second Current County or Unitary Authority:  

Second Historic County:  

Second Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland:  

Dating Evidence

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:  
1200BC - 800BC:  
400BC - AD50:  
AD50 - AD400:  
AD400 - AD 800:  
Post AD800:  
Unknown:  

Pre Hillfort Activity:  ✗  

Post Hillfort Activity:  ✗  

None:  No details.

Investigations

1st Identified Written Reference (1777):  Description by John Williams (1777, 36-7)
Other (1783):  Description by Alexander Fraser-Tytler (Woodhouselee 1783)
Other (1824):  Noted by George Anderson in a letter to Samuel Hibbert (1857)
1st Identified Map Depiction (1869):  Annotated Vitrified Fort on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map (Nairn 1871, sheet 7.2,)
Earthwork Survey (1918):  Description and sketch-plan (Wallace 1918, 107-9)
Earthwork Survey (1943):  Sketch-plan and description by Angus Graham and Gordon Childe for RCAHMS wartime Emergency Surveys (RCAHMS SC1453976)
Earthwork Survey (1957):  Plan and description for RCAHMS Survey of Marginal Lands (RCAHMS DC31553-4; Feachem 1963, 140)
Other (1965):  Resurveyed at 1:2500 by the OS
Other (1969):  Scheduled
Other (1971):  Visited by the OS
Other (1978):  Visited by RCAHMS

Interior Features

Featureless apart from a possible well at the SW end

Water Source

None:  
Spring:  
Stream:  
Pool:  
Flush:  
Well:  
Other:  

Surface

Well

No Known Features:  
Round Stone Structures:  
Rectangular Stone Structures:  
Curvilinear Platforms:  
Other Roundhouse Evidence:  
Pits:  
Quarry Hollows:  
Other:  

Excavation

No Known Excavation:  
Pits:  
Postholes:  
Roundhouses:  
Rectangular Structures:  
Roads/Tracks:  
Quarry Hollows:  
Other:  
Nothing Found:  

Geophysics

No Known Geophysics:  
Pits:  
Roundhouses:  
Rectangular Structures:  
Roads/Tracks:  
Quarry Hollows:  
Other:  
Nothing Found:  

Finds

Pig and other animal bones and an arrowhead according to Wallace (1918)

No Known Finds:  
Pottery:  
Metal:  
Metalworking:  
Human Bones:  
Animal Bones:  
Lithics:  
Environmental:  
Other:  

Aerial

NO APPARENT FEATURES

APs Not Checked:  
None:  
Roundhouses:  
Rectangular Structures:  
Pits:  
Postholes:  
Roads/Tracks:  
Other:  

Entrances

See main summary

Total Number of Breaks Through Ramparts:  

Number of Possible Original Entrances:   

Guard Chambers:  

Chevaux de Frise:  ✗  

Entrance 1 (Northeast):  Simple Gap:  Inner wall
Entrance 1 (Northeast):  Passage-way/Corridor:  Appears as a long passageway flanked on the N by what is either an or one side of a rectangular enclosure
Entrance 2 (Southwest):  Simple Gap:  Possible overlap at the SW end of the outermost rampart, but equally may be the result of degradation

Enclosing Works

Two phase enclosure on the summit, with an intermittent circuit on the slope below forming an outer enclosure

Enclosed Area 1:  0.1ha.
Enclosed Area 2:  0.15ha.
Enclosed Area 3:  0.55ha.
Enclosed Area 4:  
Total Enclosed Area:  0.6ha.

Total Footprint Area:  0.65ha.

Multi-period Enclosure System:  ✓  Inner enclosure overlies an earlier enclosure taking in the whole summit

Ramparts Form a Continuous Circuit:  ✓  

Number of Ramparts:  4

Number of Ramparts NE Quadrant:  4
Number of Ramparts SE Quadrant:  2
Number of Ramparts SW Quadrant:  3
Number of Ramparts NW Quadrant:  2

Current Morphology

Partial Univallate:  
Univallate:  
Partial Bivallate:  
Bivallate:
Partial Multivallate:  
Multivallate:  
Unknown:  

Multi-period Morphology

Partial Univallate:  
Univallate:  
Partial Bivallate:  
Bivallate:  
Partial Multivallate:  
Multivallate:  

Surface Evidence

Claimed as a vitrified fort by Williams (1777, 37-7), there is very little evidence that this is correct.

None:  
Earthen Bank:  
Stone Wall:  
Rubble:  
Wall-walk:  
Evidence of Timber:  
Vitrification:  
Other Burning:  
Palisade:  
Counter Scarp Bank:  
Berm:  
Unfinished:  
Other:  

Excavated Evidence

None:  
Earthen Bank:  
Stone Wall:  
Murus Duplex:  
Timber-framed:  
Timber-laced:  
Vitrification:  
Other Burning:  
Palisade:  
Counter Scarp Bank:  
Berm:  
Unfinished:  
No Known Excavation:  
Other:  

Gang Working

Gang Working:  ✗ 

Ditches

Ditches:  

Number of Ditches:  

Annex

Annex:  ✗  

References

Anderson, G (1857) 'On certain vitrified (and unvitrified) forts in the neighbourhood of Loch Ness and the Moray Firth. In a letter to Dr Hibbert'. Archaeologia Scotica 4 (1857), 195-201

Feachem, R (1963) A guide to prehistoric Scotland. Batsford: London

Woodhouselee (Fraser-Tytler, A) 1783 Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Wallace, T (1918) 'Archaeological Notes'. Trans Inverness Sci Soc Fld Club 8 (1912-18), 87-136

Terms of Use

The online version of the Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland should be cited as:

Lock, G. and Ralston, I. 2017.  Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. [ONLINE] Available at: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk.

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