Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Scottish Borders 55335 (None)
NMR: NT 51 SW 1 (55335)
SM: 1700
NGR: NT 5367 1237
X: 353670 Y: 612370 (OSGB36)
The remains of a fort overlain by a late Iron Age settlement are situated on the S end of the elongated summit of Kirkton Hill. Oval on plan, the fort measures internally about 58m from NE to SW by 52m transversely (0.25ha), but its defences have been obscured by the construction of the later settlement, which not only occupies the interior, but sprawls across the ramparts on the relatively level N flank, while on the E they are overlain by a rectilinear settlement enclosure and elsewhere ploughed-down by rig and furrow cultivation. Nevertheless, a belt of at least two ramparts and ditches, the outer with a counterscarp bank, can be seen stepping down the slope on the SW in a series of scarps and terraces, while on the N the inner forms a scarp beneath the later settlement, and the outer can be traced with an external ditch and a counterscarp bank. From outside the latter another ditch with an external bank extends across to the escarpment forming the W flank of the hill, before turning southwards and petering out on the slope. The fort may have been succeeded by an enclosure following the line of the inner rampart, but this has been incorporated into a series of yards and scooped courts associated with no fewer than thirteen round-houses, most of which are stone-founded and are probably late Iron Age in date; a markedly rectilinear enclosure containing two scooped courts was considered to date from the later Middle Ages by the RCAHMS investigators in 1948, but it is probably another element of the late Iron Age settlement. The position of the entrance into the fort is unknown, though the RCAHMS investigators suggest that it is probably in the obliterated SE sector of the defences.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -304254 Y: 7440496 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -2.7331603722929025 Latitude: 55.403100055190464 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Scottish Borders
Historic County: Roxburghshire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Cavers
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: | Overlain by a Late Iron Age settlement |
Photographed by RCAHMS Aerial Survey Programme in 1995, 1999 and 2010
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1858): | Annotated Fort on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map (Roxburgh 1863, sheet 26.9) |
| Earthwork Survey (1861): | Plan and notes (Murray 1861) |
| Earthwork Survey (1898): | Sketch-plan by David Christison (1898, 295-7, fig 119) |
| Earthwork Survey (1948): | Plan and description (RCAHMS 1956, 104-5, no.148, fig 141; RCAHMS RXD 94/1-2) |
| Other (1958): | Scheduled |
Occupied by a late Iron Age settlement of thirteen stone-founded round-houses with associated scooped courts and yards
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Of the late Iron Age settlement
| 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 | ✗ |
Stone-founded round-houses of late Iron Age date
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✓ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
See main summary
| 0: | None |
| 2: | Not known |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
At least two ramparts ditches with a counterscarp bank accompanying the outer
| Area 1: | 0.25ha. |
| Total: | 0.25ha. |
Total Footprint Area: 0.78ha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✓ | Probably a complete circuit |
| NE Quadrant: | 2 |
| SE Quadrant: | 0 |
| 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 | ✗ |
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 |
| ✓ | This discounts the outlying earthwork on the NW, which may be the remains of a cross-ridge dyke |
Number of Ditches: 2
| ✗ | None |
Christison, D (1898) Early fortifications in Scotland: motes, camps and forts: the Rhind lectures in archaeology for 1894. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh
Murray, J A H (1861) 'On the camp at Kirkton Hill'. Minute Book Hawick Archaeol Soc, 1861, Plan and TS. copy in Wilton Lodge Museum
RCAHMS (1956) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. An inventory of the ancient and historical monuments of Roxburghshire: with the fourteenth report of the Commission, 2v. HMSO: 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