LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
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HER: Fife Council None (None)
NMR: NO 61 SW 4 (35367)
SM: 6574
NGR: NO 6179 1090
X: 361790 Y: 710900 (OSGB36)
The site of this fortification occupies the precipitous coastal promontory named Randerstone Castle on the 1st edition OS 6-inch map (Fife 1855, sheet 13), a name that has become associated in the locality with the site of the 'castle' that was replaced in the late 16th by the present farmhouse at Randerston steading (RCAHMS 1933, 177, no.356). Whether there is any truth in this attribution is unclear, but the ditch-system revealed by the cropmarks barring access to the promontory from the SW probably represents two periods of construction, and the innermost ditch, which is some 10m in breadth and almost certainly represents the final phase of the defences, was certainly of sufficient stature to have been the ditch of a medieval castle. If so this was a major castle, not simply a tower-house, and considerably more important than the available documentation might suggest, enclosing an area measuring about 95m from NW to SE by 75m transversely (0.53ha). The position of the entrance is not visible, the only feature within the interior being what is probably the faint scar of an internal rampart 10m thick immediately to the rear of the ditch, the presence of which reduces the interior to about (0.41ha). At first sight this ditch is accompanied by two concentric outer ditches, but on closer inspection it is clear that towards the NW the inner of these two merges with the broad innermost ditch, and an additional external ditch has been added to the exterior. Unfortunately the detail of the junction is distorted by a natural feature that extends obliquely across the defences at this point, but a faint nick where the outer lips of the two ditches come together suggests that the innermost cuts across the outer line, having been dug in the southern sector to the rear of what was probably originally the inner rampart of an essentially bivallate work, with an additional outer rampart and ditch on the W; the interior probably measured about 0.62ha in extent and again the position of the entrance is not known.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -291529 Y: 7616174 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -2.6188498655764274 Latitude: 56.289051809967255 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Fife
Historic County: Fife
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Kingsbarns
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: 15.0m
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: | Possibly occupied by a castle and latterly ploughed down |
Photographed by RCAHMS Aerial Survey Programme in 1976, 1982, 1985 and 2008
| Other (1968): | Visited by the OS but nothin was visible |
| 1st Identified Written Reference (1976): | First identified by RCAHMS Aerial Survey Programme (Welfare 1980) |
| Other (1996): | Scheduled |
Featureless apart from traces of the inner rampart
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 | ✗ |
None known
| 0: | None |
| 2: | None known |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
At least three ditches cutting off a promontory, but representing two schemes of defence
| Area 1: | 0.41ha. |
| Area 2: | 0.62ha. |
| Total: | 0.62ha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✓ | None |
| ✗ | None |
| NE Quadrant: | 0 |
| SE Quadrant: | 0 |
| SW Quadrant: | 3 |
| NW Quadrant: | 0 |
| Total: | 3 |
| 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: 3
| ✗ | None |
RCAHMS (1933) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions of Scotland. Eleventh report with inventory of monuments and constructions in the counties of Fife, Kinross, and Clackmannan. HMSO: Edinburgh
Welfare, H (1980) 'Jigsaw puzzle and dustbin: air photography and the Iron Age in southern Scotland'. Scot Archaeol Forum 10 (1978), 1-11
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