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'The Doon', Twynholm

Fort (Period Unassigned)

Site Name 'The Doon', Twynholm

Classification Fort (Period Unassigned)

Canmore ID 64068

Site Number NX65SE 3

NGR NX 6603 5438

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/64068

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

Administrative Areas

  • Council Dumfries And Galloway
  • Parish Twynholm
  • Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
  • Former District Stewartry
  • Former County Kirkcudbrightshire

Archaeology Notes

NX65SE 3 6603 5438

(NX 6603 5438) The Doon (Earthworks) (NR)

OS 6" map (1910)

"The Doon" - This fort is now very indefinite, occupying the south end of the summit of a prominent hill... 325 feet above sea level. There is a central disc with a slight bank around it, measuring some 78 feet from north to south by 82 feet from east to west. Towards the south of this there are faint indications of a double trench with an intervening rampart, the whole measuring 101 feet across, while towards the north there are the remains of a trench about 30 feet wide. Around the edge of the summit from south to south-west is a well-defined scarp some 6 feet in height. An old dyke and trench cross the centre of the summit from north to south.

RCAHMS 1914, visited 1911; F R Coles 1893

The remains of this fort are generally as described by RCAHMS. Only on the south side of the central area is a bank visible. Outside this central area, encircling the west side, is a prominent scarp, c.2.0m high, which may be the 6 ft high well-defined scarp mentioned by

RCAHMS.

Re-surveyed at 1:2500.

Mr A E Truckell, Dumfries Museum, confirmed that the fort is known as "The Doon".

Visited by OS (EGC) 9 February 1965.

Activities

Field Visit (30 September 1952)

This site was included within the RCAHMS Marginal Land Survey (1950-1962), an unpublished rescue project.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

Note (20 December 2013 - 23 May 2016)

The remains of this small hilltop fortification comprise two main elements, namely an inner and an outer enclosure. The inner enclosure measures some 24m in diameter within its bank, which has been heavily reduced by cultivation but seems to lie eccentrically across the perimeter of a slightly larger enclosure looping out around the southern half of the circuit; this too is reduced to no more than a scarp. The outer enclosure measures about 65m from N to S by 50m transversely (0.26ha) within a rampart that now forms a scarp up to 2m in height and is accompanied by a broad external ditch some 9m across. Traces of a bank have also been noted on the counterscarp on the N, where it is preserved within the plantation enclosure that eccentrically encloses the earlier earthworks. The interior is featureless and the position of the entrance is not known. While elements of these inner and outer enclosures may have operated in a concerted scheme of enclosure, the outer may equally have served as a free-standing perimeter, and was evidently a substantial work in its own right.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 23 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC0251

References

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