Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Scottish Borders 51347 (None)
NMR: NT 23 SE 2 (51347)
SM: None
NGR: NT 2895 3245
X: 328950 Y: 632450 (OSGB36)
This fort is situated at the NE tip of the crest of Chester rig, which drops down between the valleys of the Quair Water and the Kill Burn behind Glen House. The fort is probably an oval enclosure defended by a single wall, but it is overlain and obscured by two successive settlements, the earlier a scooped settlement containing two round-house platforms, which has destroyed the central sector of the fort's SE side, and the later an oval enclosure containing four stone-founded round-houses set roughly at the centre of the interior. This is unfortunate, for these later settlements not only disarticulate the two ends of the fort, but the latter obscures the inner end of what appears to have been a highly unusual entrance on the N side. Assuming that the two ends belong to a unitary work, it measures internally about 137m from NE to SW by up to 67m transversely (0.7ha), and its wall has been variously reduced to a stony scarp up to 1.2m high or a thin band of rubble. There are several gaps in the line of the wall, but with the exception of the entrance on the N, these all appear to be more recent; at the entrance, however, the wall on both sides seems to turn inwards, creating a deep funnel-shaped re-entrant, the inner end of which is sealed off by the later settlement. A single house platform can be seen within the SW end of the interior. The latest settlement enclosure within the interior is oval on plan and measures 53m from NE to SW by 44m transversely within a wall that has also been reduced to a band of rubble; it has an entrance on the NE, facing towards one of the later breaks in the fort wall, and within its interior, which is divided into three by low stony banks, there are up to four stony ring-banks. A post medieval quarry has also been driven through the perimeter and into the interior of this settlement from the SSE.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -348274 Y: 7475361 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -3.1286006971300573 Latitude: 55.58053398094335 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Scottish Borders
Historic County: Peeblesshire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Traquair
None
| Extant | ✓ |
| Cropmark | ✗ |
| Likely Destroyed | ✗ |
Having been planted with trees in the 19th century it is now in rough grass an heather with occasional trees
| 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: 373.0m
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: | Appears to be overlain by later Iron Age settlements, but a post-medieval quarry has been driven through the perimeter into the interior of the later settlement. |
None
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1855): | Annotated Fort on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map (Peebles 1860, sheet 17.12) |
| Other (1864): | Listed by William Chambers (1864, 29) |
| Earthwork Survey (1886): | Sketch-plan and description by David Christison (1887, 63, pl 4, fig 58) |
| Other (1962): | Visited by the OS |
| Earthwork Survey (1963): | Plan and description (RCAHMS 1967, 110-11, no.274, fig 89; RCAHMS PBD 100/1-2) |
| Other (1974): | Revised at 1:2500 by the OS |
A single house platform has been observed in the fort, though two more have been noted in the overlying scooped settlement, and three stone-founded round-houses in the still later enclosures overlying the centre of the fort
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
| 6: | None |
| 2: | None |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. In-turned (North): | This is a highly unusual entrance in Scotland, and its identification rests on the assumption that the two ends of the fort are indeed parts of the same enclosure |
Single wall
| Area 1: | 0.7ha. |
| Total: | 0.7ha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✓ | Overlain by two later settlements |
| ✓ | This excludes the perimeters of the two later settlements |
| NE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SW Quadrant: | 1 |
| NW Quadrant: | 1 |
| Total: | 1 |
| 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: None
| ✗ | None |
Chambers, W (1864) A History of Peeblesshire. William and Robert Chambers: Edinburgh and London
Christison, D (1887) 'The prehistoric forts of Peeblesshire'. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 21 (1886-7), 13-82
RCAHMS (1967) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Peeblesshire: an inventory of the ancient monuments, 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