LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
Scroll left/right to view further images.
HER: Midlothian per East Lothian Council MEL8172 (None)
NMR: NT 26 SW 2 (51871)
SM: 90064
NGR: NT 2290 6387
X: 322905 Y: 663870 (OSGB36)
The fort at Castle Law, which has been in Guardianship since 1924, stands on a low summit forming part of the SE spur of Castlelaw Hill. Oval on plan, its defences comprise an inner enclosure defended by a single rampart, and an eccentric outer enclosure with at least two. The inner encloses an area measuring about 82m from ENE to WSW by 35m transversely (0.25ha), and the outer, almost certainly representing a separate phase of construction, an area about 105m by 55m (0.48ha). Not only is the outer enclosure much larger, but its defences are more complex, comprising twin ramparts with a medial ditch around most of the circuit, though subsequent cultivation has distorted the outer lines on the SSE flank, to the extent that it is unclear on the S whether the various scarps visible represent a berm between the inner rampart and the medial ditch or the insertion of an additional rampart. This circuit is also accompanied by an internal quarry ditch, which was exploited by the builders of the souterrain sunk into the rear of the rampart on the S side of the entrance at the ENE end of the fort. This entrance is one of three, the others being on the SSE and WSW and marked by deeply worn hollows mounting the slope through the rampart of the inner enclosure into the interior. The relationship between the inner and outer enclosures is uncertain, despite two campaigns of excavation, the first by Gordon Childe in 1931-2 (1933), and the second by Stuart and Margaret Piggott in 1948 (1952). The Piggott's concentrated on the rampart of the inner enclosure at the ENE entrance, where Childe had previously uncovered the posts of a timber gateway. While their work did little to clarify the character of the gateway, they uncovered evidence of transverse beam channels within the rampart and a foundation trench at the rear holding upright timbers that rose through the clay core. In the light of the excavations at Hownam Rings, their working assumption was that the outer ramparts were a later addition to this inner circuit, though there is no stratigraphic observation from either survey or excavation to confirm or deny such a sequence, and the heavy wear that is visible in the SSE and SSW entrance could have as easily formed if the inner enclosure was a later insertion. In any case, the sequence was almost certainly more complex than any simple expansion or contraction model, as can be seen in the pattern of post-holes, foundation-trenches, ramparts and ditches uncovered by Childe in the outer part of the ENE entrance. Clearly multi-period, possibly including an earlier palisade trench and apparently showing elements of the inner rampart of the outer enclosure overlying the fill of the internal quarry ditch, the stratigraphy cannot be unpicked without further excavation, but at some stage there appears to have been a timber-lined entrance passage turning in obliquely through the causeway across the ditches to expose the visitor's left side; the inner end was possibly provide with timber-lined inturns. Most of the finds from Childe's excavation came from the souterrain, including a range of Roman goods, but by its very position this implies that the defences were already abandoned by the early centuries AD.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -359933 Y: 7530966 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -3.2333314501807813 Latitude: 55.861866300001495 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Midlothian
Historic County: Midlothian
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Glencorse
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: 306.0m
N/A
There is no direct evidence for the date of the fort, though the overlying souterrain has produce Roman Iron Age artefacts
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 souterrain containing Roman goods |
Photographed by John Dewar in 1973 (held by RCAHMS) and RCAHMS Aerial Survey Programme in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 2000, 2004 and 2005. RCAHMS also holds an archive of drawings and photographs to the excavations of both Gordon Childe and Stuart Piggott
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1816): | Annotated Roman Camp on James Knox's Map of the shire of Edinburgh (1816) |
| Other (1852): | Annotated Fort on the 1st edition OS 6-inch map (Edinburghshire 1854, sheet 12) |
| Earthwork Survey (1913): | Plan and description (RCAHMS 1929, 74-5, no.102, fig 97; RCAHMS MLD 13/1-2) |
| Other (1924): | Taken into Guardianship; Scheduled |
| Excavation (1931): | Directed by Gordon Childe (1933) |
| Excavation (1932): | Directed by Gordon Childe (1933) |
| Earthwork Survey (1932): | Gordon Childe presents a plan subtly different from the RCAHMS plan, but clearly derived from it, but attributes it to HMOW (1933, 363, fig 1); he later thanks Mr J Mathieson for surveying the fort and the souterrain (1933, 388); though this may relate only to the excavated portions. |
| Excavation (1948): | Directed by Stuart Piggott (Piggott and Piggott 1952) |
| Other (1970): | Resurveyed at 1:2500 by the OS |
| Other (1976): | Visited by the Hill-fort Study Group |
| Earthwork Survey (2005): | Plan, including ground surveyed terrain model, and description (RCAHMS DC45978, DC48904-5) |
| LiDAR Survey (2005): | Ground surveyed terrain model (RCAHMS SC1059248-9) |
| Geophysical Survey (2009): | Results unpublished |
Faint traces of several stances for timber round-houses beneath evidence of shallow rig cultivation
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Faint traces of shallow scoops and hollows probably relating to timber round-house stances underneath shallow cultivation rigs. Internal quarry ditch is present.
| No Known Features | ✗ |
| Round Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Rectangular Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Curvilinear Platforms | ✗ |
| Other Roundhouse Evidence | ✓ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✓ |
| Other | ✗ |
Apart from the souterrain none of what was uncovered here by Childe (1933) can be attributed to internal structures
| No Known Excavation | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
| Nothing Found | ✓ |
Results unknown
| No Known Geophysics | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
| Nothing Found | ✗ |
Finds from the souterrain include: a bronze bar and pieces of sheet bronze; a bronze ring, brooch and decorated buckle; a bronze nail and a bronze tube; sherds of Samian; fragments of glass; a shale whorl; and an iron bloom (See Welfare 1984). From elsewhere: a whetstone; several sherds of coarse pottery; shale disc, ring and bracelet fragments; iron object; and several stone balls
| 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): | In the inner with timber fittings |
| 1. In-turned (North east): | Complex timber arrangements creating an oblique approach exposing left side and projected by short timber inturns into the interior |
| 1. Oblique (North east): | oblique approach exposing left side and projected by short timber inturns into the interior |
| 2. Simple Gap (South east): | Deeply worn hollows through both the outer and inner enclosures, and splaying into a Y immediately within the inner |
| 3. Simple Gap (South west): | Deeply worn hollow through all ramparts |
An inner enclosure with a timber-laced rampart, and an outer enclosure with twin ramparts and a medial ditch
| Area 1: | 0.25ha. |
| Area 2: | 0.48ha. |
| Total: | 0.48ha. |
Total Footprint Area: 0.95ha.
None
| ✓ | None |
| ✓ | None |
| NE Quadrant: | 3 |
| SE Quadrant: | 3 |
| SW Quadrant: | 3 |
| NW Quadrant: | 3 |
| Total: | 3 |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✓ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✓ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✓ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
unclear whether there is a berm on the S between the inner ramaprt of the outer enclosure and the medial ditch or whether the leading edge of the 'berm' is in fact a rampart.
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✓ |
| Stone Wall | ✗ |
| Rubble | ✗ |
| Wall-walk | ✗ |
| Evidence of Timber | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✓ |
| Berm | ✓ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Ditches
| 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 |
| ✓ | Includes the internal quarry ditch |
Number of Ditches: 2
| ✗ | None |
Childe, V G (1933) 'Excavations at Castlelaw Fort, Midlothian'. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 67 (1932-3), 362-88
Feachem, R W (1963) A guide to prehistoric Scotland. Batsford: London
Piggott and Piggott, S and C M (1954) 'Excavations at Castle Law, Glencorse, and at Craig's Quarry, Dirleton, 1948-9'. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 86 (1951-2), 191-6
RCAHMS (1929) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions of Scotland. Tenth report with Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Midlothian and West Lothian. HMSO: Edinburgh
Welfare, H (1984) 'The southern souterrains'. 305-23 in Miket, R and Burgess, C, (eds) Between and beyond the Walls: essays on the prehistory and history of North Britain in honour of George Jobey. John Donald: 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