LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
LiDAR 1m DTM Hillshade
Satellite Imagery
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HER: Scottish Borders 51473 (None)
NMR: NT 24 SE 37 (51473)
SM: 2681
NGR: NT 2916 4006
X: 329160 Y: 640060 (OSGB36)
The summit of Castle Hill, which rises up on the N side of the Tweed valley above Horsburgh Castle, is crowned by a small earthwork enclosure, which occupies the site of what was probably a substantial timber fort. The walls or palisades of this fort are reduced to little more than grooves in the turf on the NW side of the stone dyke that traverses the summit, the SE half partly destroyed by the construction of the earthwork enclosure and otherwise obliterated by ploughing in the 19th century. Around the NW half the courses of the palisades are marked by two grooves set 4.9m apart, though since the site was taken out of hill-grazing into a clearing in a forestry plantation these have become increasingly difficult to trace out on the ground. They disappear beneath the dyke on the NE and SW, the outer re-emerging on the NE to be cut by the ditch of the later earthwork. The projected circuit measures about 75m in diameter (0.45ha) and there is an entrance on the NW where the two palisades were linked to create a lined passage 3.5m wide, projections of the outer palisade narrowing its mouth to about 1.8m. Within the interior a second pair of palisades set 1.8m to 2.4m apart can be seen, forming a more typical double palisade with traces of a low medial bank, but too little survives to estimate the size of the enclosure. Again, there is an entrance on the NW, but rather than the formal squared lines of the outer perimeter, here the palisades unite in rounded 'hairpin' terminals to either side of the gap. Immediately within the enclosure, lying to either side of the entrance, there are traces of two round-houses defined by shallow grooves or ditches. Evidently a much smaller enclosure, this too is cut by the later settlement earthwork, which measures about 35m from NNE to SSW by 25m transversely within a heavily robbed inner wall accompanied by an outer bank and ditch, both of which are pierced by a well-formed entrance on the ESE. Despite the ploughing that has severely reduced the perimeter on the S and W, traces of three timber round-house stances can be seen within the interior, each comprising a small central platform encircled by a shallow groove or ditch.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -348122 Y: 7488843 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -3.1272300108386166 Latitude: 55.648930502221354 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Scottish Borders
Historic County: Peeblesshire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Innerleithen
None
| Extant | ✓ |
| Cropmark | ✗ |
| Likely Destroyed | ✗ |
Formerly under pasture, it is now in a large clearing in a plantation.
| 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.
Reliability: D - None
| Pre 1200BC | ✗ |
| 1200BC - 800BC | ✗ |
| 800BC - 400BC | ✗ |
| 400BC - AD50 | ✗ |
| AD50 - AD400 | ✗ |
| AD400 - AD 800 | ✗ |
| Post AD800 | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✓ |
| Pre Hillfort: | None |
| Post Hillfort: | Probably overlain by the inner palisade, certainly by the small settlement earthwork, and subsequently traversed by a stone dyke and partly ploughed down. |
Photographed by RCAHMS Aerial Survey Programme in 1983
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1856): | Annotated Fort on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map (Peebles 1859, sheet 8.8) |
| Other (1886): | Brief description by David Christison (1887, 67) |
| Earthwork Survey (1960): | Plan (RCAHMS PBD 35/1-2) |
| Other (1962): | Visited by the OS |
| Earthwork Survey (1964): | Additions to the plan in 1961 and description reviewed (RCAHMS 1967, 74-5, no.195, fig 14; RCAHMS PBD 35/2-3) |
| Other (1968): | Scheduled |
| Other (1974): | Surveyed at 1:2500 by the OS |
| Earthwork Survey (2013): | By Rubicon Heritage Services |
At least five timber round-houses, but probably dating from after the main timber-built perimeter, two lying within the inner pair of palisade trenches and defined by shallow grooves or ditches, and three within the latest enclosure with shallow ditches enclosing central platforms
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Inner pair of palisades and the overlying settlement enclosure. Ring-ditch houses
| 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 | ✗ |
Shows the internal palisades and round-houses more clearly than can be seen on the ground
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✓ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
See main summary
| 3: | But large sector of the perimeter levelled |
| 2: | Elaborated in two entries below; it is likely both were opposed by entrances on the obliterated side of the circuit. The entrance into the later settlement enclosure is omitted |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Passage-way/Corridor (North west): | Timber lined passage |
| 1. Simple Gap (North west): | Through the inner pair of palisades with hairpin terminals |
Tmber-built perimeter with two pairs of palisade trenches, enclosing a smaller enclosure with double palisades, both enclosures certainly overlain by a small bivallate settlement enclosure
| Area 1: | 0.45ha. |
| Total: | 0.45ha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✓ | While the sequence between the inner pair of palisades and the outer is unknown, both are clearly cut by the ditch of the later settlement |
| ✗ | This omits the inner palisades and the small settlement enclosure |
| NE Quadrant: | 2 |
| SE Quadrant: | 0 |
| SW Quadrant: | 0 |
| NW Quadrant: | 2 |
| Total: | 2 |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✓ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✓ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
Two twin palisades
| 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 |
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