Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Shetland Amenity Trust 2532 (None)
NMR: HU 25 NW 2 (379)
SM: 5540
NGR: HU 2165 5822
X: 421650 Y: 1158220 (OSGB36)
This fort occupies an eroded promontory on the N coast of the Walls peninsular, forming the tip of the headland on the E side of the Bay of Garth and now separated from the mainland by a storm beach. The promontory forms a V-shape on plan with a deep cleft eroded into it from the N, and while the W arm tapers northwards from the S apex of the summit area into a narrow finger 125m in overall length by 13m in maximum breadth, the respective measurements of the E arm are 85m and 17m, giving an overall area for the interior of 0.22ha. The defences comprise a thick inner stone wall extending along the lip of the E arm for about 30m and facing SE towards the adjacent land, but at its SW end, where the slope up onto the promontory was most accessible, this has been supplemented with two short lengths of outer ramparts, both of which are reduced to terraces with stone faces visible along their leading edges. The position of the entrance is uncertain, probably mounting the slope below the inner wall to the NE of the outer ramparts. Behind the inner wall on the W side of the interior Raymond Lamb noted the footings of three circular buildings about 3m in internal diameter and two sub-rectangular ones 6m in internal length, though one of these was already eroding over the edge of the cliff on the W. In addition a minor turf bank crosses the W arm of the promontory, where there is also a small square turf structure.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -179222 Y: 8468556 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -1.6099802651166017 Latitude: 60.30766041780375 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Shetland Islands
Historic County: Shetland
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Walls And Sandness
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: 10.0m
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 |
None
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1878): | Annotated Brough on the 1st edition OS 6-inch map (Shetland 1882, sheet 41) |
| Other (1931): | Description (RCAHMS 1946, iii, 152, no.1663) |
| Other (1956): | Identified as a promontory fort by J Stewart (1956, 27) |
| Other (1968): | Visited by the OS |
| Other (1971): | Description by Raymond Lamb (1980, 83; photographs held by RCAHMS) |
| Other (1980): | Sherds of pottery noted by Noel Fojut (1980) |
| Other (1993): | Scheduled |
Circular and sub-rectangular stone buildings reduce largely to grass-grown hollows
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Three circular stone-founded structures and two sub-rectangular
| 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 | ✗ |
Noted by Noel Fojut (1980)
| 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
| 0: | None |
| 2: | Not known, though probably on the E |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
At least three ramparts, though the OS surveyor in 1968 has caused some confusion in suggesting there were three massive ramparts on the slope and a lesser wall on the crest behind them
| Area 1: | 0.22ha. |
| Total: | 0.22ha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | None |
| NE Quadrant: | 0 |
| SE Quadrant: | 3 |
| SW Quadrant: | 0 |
| 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: None
| ✗ | None |
Fojut, N (1980) 'Pottery'. Disc Exc Scot (1980), 28
Lamb, R G (1980) Iron Age promontory forts in the Northern Isles. Brit Archaeol Rep, British Ser 79. BAR: Oxford
RCAHMS (1946) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Twelfth report with an inventory of the ancient monuments of Orkney and Shetland, 3v. HMSO: Edinburgh
Stewart, J (1956) 'Collaster Sandness'. Disc Exc Scot (1956), 27
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