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Burrow Head

Promontory Fort (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Burrow Head

Classification Promontory Fort (Period Unassigned)

Canmore ID 63134

Site Number NX43SE 1

NGR NX 4553 3415

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/63134

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Dumfries And Galloway
  • Parish Whithorn
  • Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
  • Former District Wigtown
  • Former County Wigtownshire

Archaeology Notes

NX43SE 1 4553 3415.

(NX 4553 3415) Promontory Fort (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

This promontory fort is a most impressive structure. The main features are the double ramparts and ditches on the W side, while an additional rampart and ditch have been interpolated on the E. The innermost rampart is best preserved on the W side of the entrance, where it is 5'6" high internally; on the E side of the entrance it is fragmentary. The inner ditch is also best preserved on the W, where it is 5' deep, but the medial rampart is best E of the entrance, where it is 5'6" high on both sides. The outer rampart and ditch are best preserved in the NW. Both ramparts are turf-covered, but the profile of the outer one is so steep that it almost certainly has a stone core, if not stone facings, while the inner rampart may likewise have been of stone. The entrance on the E side is presumably secondary, and the interior is featureless. It is not possible to determine the chronological relationship between the fort and NX43SE 3 without excavation as the point of junction between their respective ditches is obscured by the causeway.

RCAHMS 1912, visited 1911; TS., visited 1955

Generally as described. The western half of the outer rampart has been totally removed and all that remains is a slight spread of stone rubble indicating its course.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (IA) 24 January 1973

Activities

Field Visit (11 October 1955)

This site was included within the RCAHMS Marginal Land Survey (1950-1962), an unpublished rescue project.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.

Measured Survey (2003)

Surveyed and drawn by AOC Archaeology in 2003.

Note (20 December 2013 - 18 October 2016)

The earthworks of this promontory work almost certainly represent several periods of construction, though the precise sequence and their date are not known, and nor their relationship to the ditch cutting off the adjacent promontory to the E. The axis of the promontory itself lies NE and SW, projecting at an angle from this generally S-facing coast in such a way that the defences have been drawn across the relatively level line of approach from the NE to swing round its sloping N flank to meet the cliff-line on the NW; the NW sector however, has been mutilated by a quarry dug at some time between 1955 and 1973 and little more than the innermost rampart is visible here. This latter measures up to 1.6m in height and is accompanied by an external ditch up to 6m in breadth by 1.5m in depth where it is cut through the spine of the promontory on the NE adjacent to a causeway approaching a gap in the rampart. As it appears today, this causeway is a built trackway up to 5m wide, which rides over all the defences and is shown on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Wigtownshire 1850, sheet 37)extending a further 30m into the field on the NE, suggesting that the gap in the innermost rampart is secondary; on a plan drawn up by RCAHMS in 1955, another entrance is shown through both the inner and outermost defences in the mutilated area adjacent to the cliff-edge on the NW. In the levelled sector on the NW, the ditch accompanying this outermost rampart was up to 9m in breadth, narrowing to 6m where it crosses the promontory on the NE. The rampart now forms a low bank no more than 3m in breadth, and seems to cut across the line of a medial rampart with an external ditch that can also be seen cutting across the promontory beneath the stone field dyke on the NE; the best preserved length of this rampart is a tump between the cliff-edge and the S side of the causeway of the secondary trackway. The interior, which measures a maximum of 40m in length from NE to SW by 18m transversely (0.06ha) is featureless, but with the evident complexity in the sequence of construction either of the outer ramparts may have acted as an independent enclosure; the outermost took in a total area of 0.2ha.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0230

References

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