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Green Cairn, Cairnton Of Balbegno

Fort (Iron Age)

Site Name Green Cairn, Cairnton Of Balbegno

Classification Fort (Iron Age)

Alternative Name(s) Greencairn; Finella's Castle; Kincardine Castle

Canmore ID 36125

Site Number NO67SW 1

NGR NO 63342 72286

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

C14 Radiocarbon Dating

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/36125

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Aberdeenshire
  • Parish Fettercairn
  • Former Region Grampian
  • Former District Kincardine And Deeside
  • Former County Kincardineshire

Archaeology Notes

NO67SW 1 6334 7228.

(NO 6334 7228) Green Cairn (NAT) Fort (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1980)

Listed as 'Finella's Castle (or Kincardine Castle), Balbegno'.

M A Cotton 1954.

Green Cairn: A vitrified fort which may have measured about 150 by 50ft internally, but has been under cultivation so that all that remains is a stony mound representing part of the rampart or wall. Vitrified masses can be seen among the debris and dragged into the interior by cultivation.

R W Feachem 1963; O G S Crawford 1949; W Camden 1806.

Green Cairn, a vitrified fort with outworks on a low knoll commanding an extensive view. The denuded vitrified wall around the level summit of the knoll is spread to an average width of 11.0m and 0.8m average height. It encloses a roughly oval area measuring about 50.0m NE-SW by 20.0m transversely. The entrance is not evident. A gap in the SW is a mutilation to facilitate robbing. Recent digging for road metalling in the N has exposed four contiguous boulders of the inner wall face, and the partly vitrified rubble core. At the time of investigation the course of three outer works protecting the easiest approach around the NE shoulder of the knoll could be distinctly seen as curving lines of greener, higher growth in a crop of oats. A possible entrance gap, about 2.5 m wide, was evident in each. The line of the inner outwork can be traced as a change of slope around the SE side of the knoll and as a scarp around the SW side. There is no sign of the other two continuing, but they may have terminated on what would have been bog at the base of the knoll on the S and W.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (A A) 21 August 1971.

Two pieces of vitrified rock from here are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS, Accession no:

HH 644).

Information from NMAS accessions list.

A possible palisade line may be seen in the section of a small sand and gravel quarry outside the principal vitrified wall on the SE side of this fort.

I Ralston and W Watt 1982.

Air photographs: AAS/94/05/G12/1-7.

NMRS, MS/712/21.

Location cited as NO 6334 7228: nominated as Site of Regional Significance.

[Air photographic imagery listed].

NMRS, MS/712/35, visited 13 March 1979.

Activities

Field Visit (12 September 1956)

This site was included within the RCAHMS Marginal Land Survey (1950-1962), an unpublished rescue project. Site descriptions, organised by county, are available to view online - see the searchable PDF in 'Digital Items'. These vary from short notes, to lengthy and full descriptions. Contemporary plane-table surveys and inked drawings, where available, can be viewed online in most cases - see 'Digital Images'. The original typecripts, notebooks and drawings can also be viewed in the RCAHMS search room.

Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 19 July 2013.

Field Visit (December 1981)

Green Cairn, Cairnton of Balbegno NO 633 722 NO67SW 1

This fort occupies the level summit of a knoll 150m S of Cairnton of Balbegno farmhouse. Oval on plan, it measures 50m by 18m within a heavily robbed vitrified wall which varies from 5.7m to 9m in thickness. The entrance is on the NE, while a gap on the SW is probably recent. A modern dyke, which fringes a terrace on the SW, may incorporate parts of an outwork noted in 1798, and on the NE the OS report the cropmarks of possible outworks protecting the entrance. The fort was partially excavated in 1973-4 (the trenches were not back-filled and are still visible) and three radiocarbon dates were obtained: burnt timber amongst collapsed wall material, 540 ± 90 bc; twigs beneath the wall collapse, 180 ± 100 bc; a post-hole in the interior, 390 ± 95 bc.

RCAHMS 1982, visited December 1981

(Chalmers 1887-1902, i, 178; Grierson 1932, 48-51; Wedderburn 1973;

DES, 1913, 4; DES, 1914, 41; Radiocarbon, 16, 1974, 348-9)

Note (5 June 2015 - 25 October 2016)

The remains of this fort are situated on a low hillock and have been heavily reduced by both robbing and cultivation, so much so that in the mid 19th century it was merely annotated 'Green Cairn' on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map (Kincardine 1868, sheet 23.2). Nevertheless, a description written in the late 18th century and excavations in 1796 by Sir Walter Scott (Chalmers 1807, i, 178; Cameron 1899, 135-7) had clearly revealed the character of the site, recording elements of the defences and extensive evidence of burning. As it appears today, the wall is spread some 8.5m in thickness, enclosing a sub-oval area measuring 55m from NE to SW by 20m transversely (0.08ha), though where Laurie Maclagan Wedderburn exposed the faces on the N in his excavations in 1973, it was only 5m in thickness. The following year, he also uncovered an entrance at the NE end, which accords with the evidence subsequently revealed by parchmarks of three ditches at this end, pierced by a single entrance; the entrance through the wall, however, had been blocked (Wedderburn 1974). The innermost of the outer ditches probably encircles the whole fort and is cut by a small quarry on the SE, where Ian Ralston and William Watt (1982) identified a possible palisade trench, not subsequently confirmed; the sides of the quarry have entirely collapsed now and the slope is riddled with rabbit holes. Given the relatively low relief of the hillock occupied by the fort it is likely that there are also multivallate defences at the SW end. Fragments of vitrifaction can still be found along the line of the wall and Wedderburn located extensive charcoal deposits representing both small round woods and major beams, but the five radiocarbon dates he obtained have wide standard deviations and are to all intents and purposes useless, spanning 1000 years from 800 BC to AD 240. Nevertheless, amongst the later dates was at least one apparently stratified under the wall and dating 400 cal BC to cal AD 250, perhaps indicating a late Iron Age context for the fort. Wedderburn believed that some of the features he recorded in the interior dated from before the construction of the wall, though the presence of the ditches revealed by parchmarks may indicate a longer history of enclosure and fortification on this hillock.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 25 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC3101

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