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White Hill, settlement 700m SSE of Corehead

A Scheduled Monument in Annandale North, Dumfries and Galloway

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Coordinates

Latitude: 55.391 / 55°23'27"N

Longitude: -3.4607 / 3°27'38"W

OS Eastings: 307571

OS Northings: 611753

OS Grid: NT075117

Mapcode National: GBR 4683.K9

Mapcode Global: WH5V1.TR7K

Entry Name: White Hill, settlement 700m SSE of Corehead

Scheduled Date: 15 May 1995

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Source ID: SM6192

Schedule Class: Cultural

Category: Prehistoric domestic and defensive: settlement

Location: Moffat

County: Dumfries and Galloway

Electoral Ward: Annandale North

Traditional County: Dumfriesshire

Description

The monument comprises the remains of a late prehistoric defended settlement (or lightly walled fort) on the summit of the low eminence called White Hill.

The settlement is oval on plan, and has two concentric defensive elements, which may not be of the same date. The innermost is a circuit of tumbled rubble, probably the remains of a stout drystone wall, containing an area some 60m N-S by 40m. There is an entrance on the ESE. About 10m outside this ruined wall is a second series of defences, composed of two earthen ramparts with a medial ditch.

The ramparts are each up to 6m broad and stand up to 1m above the ditch. There is an entrance gap 3m wide on the E side. These ramparts appear to have been at least partly faced or edged in drystone walling, stretches of which survive on the S and E sides of the settlement. There has been extensive dumping on the monument of stone cleared from nearby fields.

The area to be scheduled is approximately oval, to include all of the defensive elements described above and the ground between and within them and a small area outside, in which evidence relating to the settlement's construction and use may survive. The area is defined by a line some 15m outside the foot of the outermost rampart, and measures a maximum of 135m N-S by 120m, as marked in red on the accompanying map.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance as a defended settlement of a type transitional between an enclosed settlement and a true fort. Its apparent multi-phase construction and its location in the centre of a fertile valley ringed by other, lesser, enclosed settlements serve to enhance its importance, and it has the potential, through excavation and analysis, to provide important information about late prehistoric settlement organisation and economy.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

RCAHMS records the monument NT 01 SE 6.

Reference:

Feachem, R. W. (1965) The North Britons, 181-2.

RCAHMS (1920) Inventory of Monuments in Dumfries-shire, 173, No. 487.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

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