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Edin's Hall

Broch (Iron Age), Fort (Prehistoric), Settlement (Prehistoric)

Site Name Edin's Hall

Classification Broch (Iron Age), Fort (Prehistoric), Settlement (Prehistoric)

Alternative Name(s) Edinshall Broch

Canmore ID 58777

Site Number NT76SE 6

NGR NT 77278 60288

NGR Description Centre

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/58777

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

  • Council Scottish Borders, The
  • Parish Duns
  • Former Region Borders
  • Former District Berwickshire
  • Former County Berwickshire

Archaeology Notes

NT76SE 6 77240 60310.

(NT 7724 6031) Edin's Hall (NAT) Fort & Broch (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1977).

Edinshall: Fort, broch and open settlement (see RCAHMS 1915 plans and illustration). The broch and several of the smaller structures were excavated at various times prior to 1879. (J Turnbull 1882). The relics recovered, which were donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS, Accession Nos: GA 112-9) consisted of a stone whorl 1 1/2ins in diameter, a piece of a jet ring, 2 1/2ins in external diameter, an amber bead, 1/2in diameter, found outside the broch, and within it bones and teeth found occasionally in all parts of the building, an oyster shell, a fragment of a translucent glass bracelet, a bronze or brass stud 1/2in high and 3/8in diameter, and an octagonal buckle of bronze or brass, probably of late 15th century date. The two last-mentioned objects have no connection with the original occupation.

R W Feachem 1963; RCAHMS 1915, visited 1914.

The fort, broch, and open settlement at Edin's Hall (Information from DoE {HBM} guide post), are generally as planned by the RCAHMS. The outer defences are still substantial, the ramparts standing in places to a height of about 4.5m above the bottom of the adjacent ditch. The broch has been restored by the DoE and stands almost 2.0m high. Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS(RD) 27 April 1966.

This complex site stands on the NE slope of Cockburn Law (about 210m OD) just above a fairly steep slope down to the Whiteadder Water. The fort consists of a double rampart, each line with an external ditch, enclosing an oval area some 135m E-W by 75m transversely. On the N side the defences continue as stony banks at the top of the slope. The entrance has been in the WSW.

The walls of the broch still stand up to 1.5m high in places. The entrance is in the SSE and has door-checks as well as two guard cells opening off it further in. Three large mural cells open on to the central court which is 16.8m in diameter. The cell on the S has the remains of a stone stairway at its N end which presumably rose to the wallhead. The wall is 5.2m thick so that the overall diameter of the building is some 27m, very large for a broch. A rectangular chamber attached to the outside of the wall at the entrance is a secondary addition, but the sub-rectangular enclosure within which the broch stands is possibly contemporary (RCAHMS 1980, visited 1979).

The final phase of occupation on the site is represented by an open settlement, consisting of a number of circular hut foundations in the E half of the fort. Many of these over- ride the fort ramparts and are therefore later than they are, and probably later than the broch as well.

It may be supposed that the fort belongs to the pre-Roman Iron Age, and that the broch was probably built in the forty-year interval (from A D 100) between the two Roman occupations of southern Scotland, and that the open settlement was perhaps an undefended village under the pax Romana of about A D 140-180 (E W MacKie 1975).

E W MacKie 1975; RCAHMS 1980.

A survey of the site was carried out by the Centre for Field Archaeology between January and March 1996 to determine the effects of rabbit and other damage. A copy of the report has been deposited in the NMRS.

See NMRS MS/726/80.

NT 772 601 Archaeological survey and sample excavation were conducted at Edin's Hall (NT76SE 6) between January and March 1996 in response to evidence of significant rabbit damage to the earthworks across the site. The following elements of the work have been conducted: 1. a written, photographic and instrument survey of the types and severity of erosion across the site, 2. a topographic and contour survey of the site, 3. sample excavation of nine trenches to examine eroding areas and to examine the character and quality of preservation of the enclosing works of the fort, and the interior of the broch and stone huts; 4. Assessment of palaeoenvironmental potential; 5. excavation of five pits for rabbit traps along the fence line to the S of the site.

Rabbit and gorse cover have both been demonstrated as having significant negative impacts upon quality of preservation. The most intrusive erosion is largely confined to the fort ramparts and ditches enclosing the S and W sides of the site. For the most part the disturbance within the site is relatively superficial, although in places is sufficient to cause significant damage to preserved archaeological deposits and features. The fort ramparts were identified as being of dump construction with retaining walls on their outer edges. Trenches excavated through the S side of the enclosure bank on the S side of the broch revealed it to contain a wall with a well-built outer face, rougher inner face and an earthen core. The wall had secondary rubble banks applied to both sides, and a buried soil ran beneath it.

A trench excavated in the interior of the broch revealed that not all deposits had been removed by previous excavators: paving overlying a layer of cobbling was identified. Two stone huts were examined, revealing the walls to be of complex construction but identifying no more than the residual remains of occupation material within them. A small assemblage of artefacts includes coarse pottery and a stone spindle whorl. Nothing of archaeological significance was revealed in the pits for rabbit traps.

Further details are provided in a Data Structure Report lodged with the NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

A Dunwell 1996

The site is visible on vertical air photographs (OS 70/365/240 flown 1970, 65/100/145 flown 1965).

Information from RCAHMS (JH) 12 May 1998.

Activities

Measured Survey (September 1950)

Field Visit (7 October 1954)

The unpublished description of Edin's Hall prepared by the Commission and dated 7 October 1954 is filed with the Marginal Land Survey typescripts (Berwick Typescript p15-17). Further documentary evidence suggests that the measured survey (undertaken in 1950) was intended to provide the illustration for an appendix to the Stirlingshire Inventory, and as a comparison with Torwoodlee (NT43NE 2), which itself was surveyed in 1950.

Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 28 March 2014.

Publication Account (1985)

In the late 18th century this site was called 'Wooden's (Woden's or Odin's) Hall or Castle". An alternative folk etymology, "Jotun (giant's) Hall", reputedly recalls Red Etin of tale and ballad. It is a multi-period site set above a steep slope over 60 m down to the Whiteadder Water, but otherwise difficult to defend. The earliest structure is an oval fort some 134m by 73m, enclosed by a double rampart and ditches. (There is a hillfort on Cockburn Law, just behind: NT 765597.)

Most remarkable, however, is the broch, a well-preserved outlier of an essentially northern Scottish type of fortified building, which lies in the north-west corner of the earlier fort. Either side of the 4.9m long entrance passage is a guard chamber set in the 5m and more thick walls, and the courtyard has an overall diameter of some 22m. South of the entrance an opening gives access within the walls to a short stair and passage: to the left a small chamber, to the right a further stair to the top of the wall. Elsewhere there are two further intramural cavities, each with a short passage opening either end on to a small compartment and curving to follow the line of the main wall. The small rectangular chamber just to the north and outside the entrance passage is, however, a secondary feature.

A roughly rectangular enclosure surrounds the broch, but this may relate rather to the last phase of occupation-an open unfortified settlement consisting of circular hut foundations and stretches of walling in the eastern half of the hillfort. In the upper angle of the surrounding field, about 90m to the south-east, further small circular and rectangular enclosures set mainly in a line, abutting, suggest further habitation with cultivation carned close on all sides.

The fort can probably be dated to the last years BC or early AD, prior to the arnval of the Romans; the open settlement was maybe an undefended village established in the later 2nd century AD under the 'pax Romana'. As to the broch, it seems to be the only one within the terntory of the Votadini, who were supposedly at peace with the Romans. Perhaps it was built between the two Roman occupations of southern Scotland, but by whom? Were lowland brochs built by professional broch builders commissioned by leading lowland families as protection against the Romans?

Information from 'Exploring Scotland's Heritage: Lothian and Borders', (1985).

Project (January 1996 - March 1996)

NT 772 601 Archaeological survey and sample excavation were conducted at Edin's Hall (NT76SE 6) between January and March 1996 in response to evidence of significant rabbit damage to the earthworks across the site. The following elements of the work have been conducted: 1. a written, photographic and instrument survey of the types and severity of erosion across the site, 2. a topographic and contour survey of the site, 3. sample excavation of nine trenches to examine eroding areas and to examine the character and quality of preservation of the enclosing works of the fort, and the interior of the broch and stone huts; 4. Assessment of palaeoenvironmental potential; 5. excavation of five pits for rabbit traps along the fence line to the S of the site.

Further details are provided in a Data Structure Report lodged with the NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

A Dunwell 1996

Contour Survey (January 1996 - March 1996)

NT 772 601 Erosion survey and topographic and contour survey:

Rabbit and gorse cover have both been demonstrated as having significant negative impacts upon quality of preservation. The most intrusive erosion is largely confined to the fort ramparts and ditches enclosing the S and W sides of the site. For the most part the disturbance within the site is relatively superficial, although in places is sufficient to cause significant damage to preserved archaeological deposits and features. The fort ramparts were identified as being of dump construction with retaining walls on their outer edges.

Further details are provided in a Data Structure Report lodged with the NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

A Dunwell 1996

Excavation (January 1996 - March 1996)

NT 772 601 Trenches excavated through the S side of the enclosure bank on the S side of the broch revealed it to contain a wall with a well-built outer face, rougher inner face and an earthen core. The wall had secondary rubble banks applied to both sides, and a buried soil ran beneath it.

A trench excavated in the interior of the broch revealed that not all deposits had been removed by previous excavators: paving overlying a layer of cobbling was identified. Two stone huts were examined, revealing the walls to be of complex construction but identifying no more than the residual remains of occupation material within them. A small assemblage of artefacts includes coarse pottery and a stone spindle whorl. Nothing of archaeological significance was revealed in the pits for rabbit traps.

Further details are provided in a Data Structure Report lodged with the NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

A Dunwell 1996

Publication Account (2007)

NT76 1 EDINSHALL

NT/7724 6031

This broch-like stronghold, or large dun, inside an enclosure is associated with an older bivallate hillfort and with a later open settlement centred on a roundhouse (visited in 1989). Edinshall is included here because the round, drystone building has always been termed a ‘broch’ despite the several fundamental differences from true broch architecture which its design exhibits (see ‘Discussion’). The site was first explored in about 1870 by Turnbull [2] and has recently been re-examined, and its significance re-assessed, by Dunwell [6]. The following description is based on this new work.

Description

Sequence of occupations: the latest fieldwork at the site [6] appears to confirm the traditional sequence outlined at the beginning of this entry. Presumably the enclosure began to be constructed while the ‘broch’ was in use, since it provides a large area around the latter, and was gradually expanded. There is no obvious difference in age between its various parts, and no relevant evidence was revealed by the recent excavations.

The ‘broch’ lies within a sub-rectangular enclosure measuring about 58m north/south by 54m east/west. It is slightly oval in shape and the external diameter varies from 27.5 to 28.2m, the wall being from 4.8 to 6.4m thick. The central court looks distinctly elliptical on Dunwell’s plan. The outer face is vertical, in marked contrast to the sloping, stepped profile of tower brochs. The building stone appears to be local and the technique of construction – in which large blocks are underpinned by smaller slabs – is familiar from sites in Atlantic Scotland.

Edinshall is another example of a broch-like building which is known to have been better preserved in the recent past [6, 315]. At present the outer face stands to between 1.0 and 1.8m, though this is partly due to modern reconstruction. At the end of the 18th century, before the documented stone-robbing occurred, the wall is said to have been between 2.0 - 2.5m high (Turnbull 1857, 9). This should mean that, if there were once any raised galleries in the wall, that in Level 2 should have been partly preserved just over two centuries ago. On the other hand if the wall was never much higher than that it could have been solid.

The paved entrance passage – just under 5m long – faces just south of east and the outer part is 1.3m wide; at a distance of about 2.5m from the outside is the usual door-frame with rebated checks but no sign of any bar-hole or socket. The width then increases to 1.6m. There are two guard cells with rounded ends and with opposed doorways; the battering of the walls of the north (right) cell indicates that the roof was probably once corbelled, which would take the original wall height up to at least 2.5m and probably more. The doorway to this cell was once wider but has been narrowed by a block of unbonded stonework. The southern cell has been divided into two parts by another such block; its doorway has been walled off, probably during modern restoration. It once had a high sill [6, 316].

There are three intra-mural cells with doorways at 9.30, 11.30 and 3 o’clock respectively, all of which are approximately dumb-bell shaped with their doorways at the centre. The historical evidence for their once having been partly corbelled is somewhat contradictory [6, 316] though it seems very likely that they were once roofed with domes. The sizes of the cells, and various other dimensions, are given by Dunwell [6, 313, Table 1].

The cell at 9.30 contains the remains of an intra-mural stair at its right end; the left end is a distinct oval cell. Dunwell observes that the steps of the stair have little sign of wear. A secondary block of masonry projects from the outside wall, just to the right of the doorway, as if to narrow the approach to the stair. The original clearance by Turnbull failed to find any evidence of paving.

The cell at 11.30 has been divided into three interconnecting parts by two added blocks of masonry, one on either side of the doorway. Some paving was found by Turnbull, as well as a hearth in the middle of the left half.

The cell at 3 o’clock shows evidence for one-time corbelling at its ends and it too has been subdivided into two chambers by a secondary block of masonry opposite the doorway.

Shape of central court: in 1989 the author carried out an angle-and-distance survey of the inner wallface. It is clear that the inner face of the wall was not laid out using a peg-and-string compass; the shape is rather irregular and nothing like circular or elliptical. the maximum and minimum internal diameters are 17.2m and 18.3m according to Dunwell).

External structures. Immediately out-side the entrance is a series of added walls. The earliest is a grassed-over wall which curves round from the right side of the passage to form a porch protecting the doorway. A small rectangular building was erected on top of this, but its design does not suggest that it had anything to do with defending the entrance passage.

Finds [6, Illus. 20 and 21]

Included in this list are the probable Iron Age items from both Turnbull’s work and that of Dunwell [6, 332]. Nothing from the central court or the cells has a proper context except for the copper ingots. The numbers in brackets refer to Dunwell’s drawings.

Stone: 1 rough-out for a bead or pendant (1), 1 perforated disc of sand-stone (2); 1 ring or pendant (or hair ornament) of cannel coal (3). There are also some coarse stone tools such as a hammerstone (11), a whetstone (9), a whetstone/polisher (8) and a rubber (10). Some querns of unknown type are recorded by Turnbull but their present whereabouts is not known.

Glass: 1 armlet of opaque white glass, of Kilbride’s Type 3A, made of re-used Roman glass and dateable to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (4).

Amber: 1 perforated bead (5).

Copper: 2 plano-convex ingots one of which is in the National Museum, the other being lost. Both were apparently found with a metal detector in 1976, buried 60cm deep under the floor of the southern cell, near the base of the intra-mural stair. The one in the National Museum was reported, unsurprisingly, as having been found well away from the site but Dunwell managed to contact the finder twenty years later and to establish the true find spot. Both ingots were found together but the second was obtained by an antiques dealer and is now missing. The dating of such ingots is discussed in detail [6, 339-40].

Bronze: 1 medieval ring-brooch (6) dated to the 13th century onwards: 1 decorative domed stud-head (7).

Pottery: two coarse sherds, probably of Iron Age type.

Discussion

Finds: apart from the two copper ingots the Iron Age finds are “common-place” and shed little light on the date or purpose of Edinshall, apart from suggesting an occupation in the Roman Iron Age and later. The suggestion is made that the ingots – derived from local copper mines – show how the inhabitants obtained their wealth and prestige. The second and third centuries were the time of the manufacture of the massive bronze armlets so characteristic of north-east Scotland and a considerable amount of copper would have been needed for them.

Geometry: The shape of the central court is irregular – in marked contrast to the surveyed circular brochs of the Atlantic Province. The standard deviations of the radii of the best-fitting circles for the central courts are very small – sometimes as little as 2% of the radius or less. It is clear that the ritual accompanying the setting out the shape of a new broch on the ground involved a carefully measured circle for the central court, possible using a standard unit of length and certainly using a peg-and-string compass. This did not happen at Edinshall and this fits well with the author’s impression that the structure is a late, outsize, crude copy of the broch tradition.

Terminology: The confusion produced by using the relatively new but vague terms ‘Atlantic roundhouse’ and ‘complex Atlantic roundhouse’ – the second of which the Edinburgh school wishes to substitute for ‘broch’ (in the sense of ‘hollow-walled tower broch’) – is well illustrated by Edinshall. This huge site is called a ‘broch’ in the title of the latest description [6] – even though it patently is not one. Yet the same excavator describes Durcha (NC50 2) – which is in the middle of the north mainland broch province (where almost no other kinds of small, round, thick-walled stone buildings are known) and is of the appropriate size and shape – as an ‘Atlantic Roundhouse’ in the title of the report on that site which immediately follows the one on Edinshall.

Sources: 1. NMRS site no. NT 76 SE 6: 2. Turnbull 1856 and 1882: 3. RCAHMS 1915, 60-4, no. 115: 4. Stevenson 1976, 49-50: 5. RCAHMS 1980b, 35, no. 190: 6. Dunwell et al 1999b.

E W MacKie 2007

Note (5 February 2016 - 25 October 2016)

This fort, which is situated on the sloping NE flank of Cockburn Law immediately above a steep escarpment dropping into the gorge of the Whiteadder Water, is better known for the broch occupying the NW end of the interior. This has attracted numerous antiquaries and archaeologists, who have variously excavated in the broch and the houses of the late Iron Age or Roman Iron Age settlement that sprawls across the SE half of the fort and overlie the defences at that end. The clearest circuit comprises double ramparts and ditches, which enclose an area measuring about 135m from ESE to WNW by 75m transversely, an area of some 0.87ha. A section partially excavated across these defences on the S in 1996 (Dunwell 1999) showed that the inner rampart was possibly faced externally but had been reduced to a bank 8.45m thick by 1.45m high, fronted by a ditch some 6m broad and possibly as much as 3m deep; the outer rampart was composed of five stratigraphic elements, which suggested a sequence of construction in which a primary counterscarp bank on the lip of the inner ditch had been enlarged with material dug from the outer ditch, though the elapse of time between these events was uncertain and this may have reflected no more than a convenient constructional sequence. A third bank some 5.5m in thickness by 1.1m in height lying within the interior in this sector, apparently forming part of a subrectangular enclosure around the broch was also sectioned, uncovering a faced wall 3.7m in thickness by 1.25m in height, with an external ditch on the S 3.5m in breadth; these were interpreted by the excavator as a secondary construction within the fort, probably associated with the broch. While this bank almost certainly incorporates elements of an enclosure around the broch, the foundations of which can be traced elsewhere, it is far more substantial here than elsewhere, and a detailed examination of the rest of the defences in this sector suggests that the explanation may be rather more complex. The defences of the fort in this sector are not only markedly more substantial than further E, but the inner rampart appears to change direction just to the W of a possible entrance in the middle of the S side, turning slightly westwards from a line that would otherwise project onto the SW corner of the supposed broch enclosure; far more likely, the broch enclosure has adapted a fragment of the rampart of a primary univallate fort, in front of which on the W a ditch at least 5m in breadth can still be seen. Unlike the inner rampart, the line of neither the outer nor its accompanying ditch deviate along the S side, indicating that these were probably an addition to the extended scheme embracing the whole circuit; if the possible entrance here is a feature of the original fort, the outer ditch appears to carry across the gap unbroken. Another gap on the W has clearly been broken through the defences, but the character of a gap on the WSW is less certain, and any entrance in the eastern end is obscured by the later settlement.

The western end of the earlier fort was probably partly demolished and extended long before the erection of the broch, which measures 16.8m in diameter within a wall between 5.2m and 6.4m in thickness, and has three mural chambers, one with a stair, and an entrance flanked by guard cells opening to the E. The whole of the eastern half of the fort is subdivided into courts and yards by low walls, which also flank a long passage entering the settlement from the ESE. At least ten stone founded round-houses are associated with this settlement, one of them an unusually large structure some 14m in diameter. The only dateable finds from the excavations - a fragment of glass armlet and a bronze stud - are associated with the broch or the later settlement, indicating that the defences were probably derelict by the late Iron Age, and certainly did not remain in use into the Roman Iron Age.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 25 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC4069

Note (23 December 2019)

The location, classification and period of this site have been reviewed.

Sbc Note

Visibility: This is an upstanding earthwork or monument.

Information from Scottish Borders Council

References

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