Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Scottish Borders 59045 (None)
NMR: NT 81 NW 23 (59045)
SM: 2160
NGR: NT 8475 1982
X: 384752 Y: 619825 (OSGB36)
This fort is situated on the summit knoll of Park Law, which forms the end of a spur extending WNW from the higher mass of Bonnie Laws. The fort comprise two main elements, namely a roughly oval enclosure on the summit itself, and an outer annexe on a shelf below the E end of the fort, though the relationship between them is uncertain. While the overall configuration of the defences suggest the annexe is an addition to a bivallate fort, there is no evidence the outer rampart continued round the E end of the fort within the annexe. Nevertheless, the inner enclosure on the rocky summit measures about 90m from E to W by 49m transversely (0.31ha) within a rampart some 3.1m in thickness, though it is largely reduced to a stony scarp with occasional outer facing-stones visible; the entrance is at the E end immediately S of the outcrops forming the E tip of the summit area. The slighter outer rampart, flanked by irregular quarry ditches both internally and externally extends round the foot of the knoll on the N, W and S, diverging on the SE to enclose the annexe and return to the foot of the summit knoll on the NE. In 1948 RCAHMS investigators opted for a fairly simple depiction, showing the annexe perimeter as a wall reduced variously to a scarp or bank with occasional facing-stones, and placing an entrance on the SE, where an outer wall loops out around the E side of the annexe and in their opinion butted onto the annexe wall; at various points an external ditch flanks the annexe wall and the addition on the E. In 1986 Roger Mercer drew a new plan showing other scarps and suggested that there was a more complex sequence of enclosures here; in particular he appears to reverse the sequence observed between the annexe wall and the addition on the E, and suggests that the annexe perimeter depicted by the RCAHMS investigators was a secondary reconstruction within the interior of an earlier annexe, and in this secondary phase it was carried round the rest of the fort; while aerial photographs suggest there may be some merit in his interpretation of two successive annexe perimeters, their relationship to the fort defences is no clearer, particularly as the link is apparently broken by a gap at the seam between the annexe and the outer rampart below the entrance at the E end of the fort, which was omitted from the RCAHMS plan but identified as an entrance by Mercer. Within the interior the eastern end is occupied by a late Iron Age settlement of stone-founded round-houses and walled yards, and it is uncertain whether any of the other scoops and stances identified by Mercer are associated with the underlying fort, but within the annexe, which is also overlain by a later farmstead, at least one large ring-ditch house can be seen and there are traces of at least two other large circular structures and possibly several smaller ones too.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -249662 Y: 7454025 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -2.2427525226793827 Latitude: 55.47204495219742 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Scottish Borders
Historic County: Roxburghshire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Morebattle
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: 324.0m
N/A
In the absence of excavation, there are neither stratified artefacts nor radiocarbon dates to provide a chronology for the defences, though the overlying settlement suggests that they belong in the pre-Roman Iron Age.
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 Late Iron Age settlement and a post-medieval farmstead with associated boundaries |
Photographed from the air by Dennis Harding in 1982, by CUCAP in 1945, and by RCAHMS Aerial Survey Programme in 1992, 1994 and 2010
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1859): | Annotated Camp on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map (Roxburgh 1863, sheet 23.5) |
| Earthwork Survey (1898): | Plan and description by Francis Lynn (1898, 191, pl vii) |
| Earthwork Survey (1948): | Plan and description (RCAHMS 1956, 335-6, no.652, fig 440; RCAHMS RXD 155/1 -3) |
| Other (1960): | Visited by the OS |
| Other (1961): | Scheduled |
| Other (1968): | Visited by the OS |
| Earthwork Survey (1986): | Plan and description by Roger Mercer (RCAHMS MS 2598, DC15946-9, DC16016, DC16023, DC16029, DC48747; overall plan DC48824 & DP100559) |
The interior is overlain by a typical late Iron age settlement comprising perhaps as many as fifteen stone-founded round-houses with associated courts and yards. The annexe contains at least on large ring-ditch house, as well as two other large circular structures and five smaller circular and oval structures defined by shallow scoops or low banks.
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
This omits any of the structures in the annexe, which are of uncertain relationship to the fort, other than the rectangular ones form part of a post-medieval farmstead. The stone-founded structures within the interior of the fort itself almost certainly relate to the overlying 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 | ✗ |
The late Iron Age settlement of stone-founded houses and yards is clearly visible
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✓ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
See main summary
| 1: | There is evidence of robbing all round the circuit |
| 2: | Only one entrance known into the inner fort |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Simple Gap (East): | Opens into the annexe |
| 2. Simple Gap (South east): | Into the annexe from the exterior |
Apparently two ramparts, though these have an ambivalent relationship to the annexe perimeter on the E, which appears to extend the line of the outer rampart on the SE, but cross it on the NE
| Area 1: | 0.31ha. |
| Total: | 0.31ha. |
Total Footprint Area: 1.3ha.
None
| ✓ | Though clearly multiperiod, the sequence is not so easily understood |
| ✓ | This omits the annexe, which adds an additional rampart around the NE |
| NE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SE Quadrant: | 2 |
| 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 |
| ✓ | None |
Number of Ditches: 2
| ✓ | The annexe displays an ambivalent relationship with the defences of the fort, made more difficult for the superimposition of a post-medieval farmstead across its E side, which may well have involved the adaptation of the perimeter. The latter seems to display two periods of construction, the inner line taking in an area of 0.32ha, and the outer an additional 0.07ha. The relationship between these two perimeters requires excavation to clarify. Within its interior at least on large ring-ditch house can be seen, as well as two other large circular structures and five smaller circular and oval structures defined by shallow scoops or low banks. |
Lynn, F (1898) 'The heads of Bowmont Water'. Hist Berwickshire Natur Club 16 (1896-8), 185-200
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