LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
Scroll left/right to view further images.
HER: Dumfries & Galloway MDG3657 (None)
NMR: NX 65 SE 25 (64062)
SM: None
NGR: NX 6672 5155
X: 266720 Y: 551550 (OSGB36)
Situated on a low ridge in an area of undulating ground, this fort is heavily ploughed down. According to Frederick Coles, whose attention was drawn to the site by a local informant, it had been oval, measuring about 75m from NE to SW by 45m transversely (0.25ha) within a single rampart, but the depiction by OS surveyors in 1894 appears to suggest that it may have been rather larger. Where traces of the rampart survive along its NW and SE sides it is little more than a terrace, and its line may even have become conflated with what appear to be lynchets formed at the edges of the later fields, but at the NE end it still forms a low mound, and there are also possible traces of an external ditch. No entrances are known and the interior is featureless.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -453848 Y: 7331068 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -4.07698287304261 Latitude: 54.84099538886636 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Dumfries & Galloway
Historic County: Kirkcudbrightshire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Twynholm
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: 77.0m
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 |
First noted by Frederick Coles about 1892 (1893, 138-9), it is first depicted about 1894 on the OS 25-inch map (Kirkcudbrightshire 1895, sheet 55.1). Photographed by RCAHMS Aerial Survey Programme in 2000.
| 1st Identified Written Reference (1892): | Description (Coles 1893, 138-9) |
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1894): | Annotated Moat on the OS 25-inch map (Kirkcudbrightshire 1895, sheet 55.1) |
| Other (1911): | Description (RCAHMS 1914, 269, no.468) |
| Other (1965): | Resurveyed at 1:2500 by the OS |
Featureless
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 | ✗ |
None
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✓ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None known
| 0: | None |
| 2: | None known |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
Single rampart probably originally forming a complete enclosure
| Area 1: | 0.2ha. |
| Total: | 0.2ha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | Probably originally complete but knowledge of the defences is incomplete |
| NE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SW Quadrant: | 0 |
| 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: 1
| ✗ | None |
Coles, F R (1893) 'The motes, forts, and doons in the east and west divisions of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright', Proc Soc Antiq Scot 27, 92-182
RCAHMS (1914) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions of Scotland. Fifth report and inventory of monuments and constructions in Galloway, II, county of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, 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