LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
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HER: Highland HER MHG6906 (None)
NMR: NH 84 NW 5 (15064)
SM: 2896
NGR: NH 8275 4757
X: 282750 Y: 847570 (OSGB36)
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.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -440643 Y: 7863668 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -3.9583673331590976 Latitude: 57.50318326321914 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Highland
Historic County: Nairn
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Cawdor
None
| Extant | ✓ |
| Cropmark | ✗ |
| Likely Destroyed | ✗ |
Clearing in coniferous plantation
| 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: 205.0m
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 |
None
| 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 |
Featureless apart from a possible well at the SW end
None
| None | ✗ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✓ |
| Other | ✗ |
Well
| 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 | ✗ |
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 | ✗ |
NO APPARENT FEATURES
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✓ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
See main summary
| 3: | None |
| 2: | None |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Simple Gap (North east): | Inner wall |
| 1. Passage-way/Corridor (North east): | Appears as a long passageway flanked on the N by what is either an or one side of a rectangular enclosure |
| 2. Simple Gap (South west): | Possible overlap at the SW end of the outermost rampart, but equally may be the result of degradation |
Two phase enclosure on the summit, with an intermittent circuit on the slope below forming an outer enclosure
| Area 1: | 0.1ha. |
| Area 2: | 0.15ha. |
| Area 3: | 0.55ha. |
| Total: | 0.55ha. |
Total Footprint Area: 0.65ha.
None
| ✓ | Inner enclosure overlies an earlier enclosure taking in the whole summit |
| ✓ | None |
| NE Quadrant: | 4 |
| SE Quadrant: | 2 |
| SW Quadrant: | 3 |
| NW Quadrant: | 2 |
| Total: | 4 |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✓ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✓ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✓ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
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 | ✗ |
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 |
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
Wallace, T (1918) 'Archaeological Notes'. Trans Inverness Sci Soc Fld Club 8 (1912-18), 87-136
Woodhouselee (Fraser-Tytler, A) 1783 Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
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