Description

The monument comprises the remains of a multivallate enclosure dating to before AD 400 and a cluster of nearby features, including a barrow. The remains lie buried beneath the ploughsoil and are visible as cropmarks captured on oblique aerial photographs. The monument lies at about 15m OD on relatively flat arable farmland about 750m N of the shore of the Montrose Basin.

The enclosure is defined by a ditch up to 5m wide enclosing a circular area some 33m in diameter. A possible break in the E side may indicate a single entrance. Some 5m inside the outer ditch, another cropmark indicates the line of a narrower, concentric inner ditch with a break to the N. Other cropmarks appear to indicate buildings or yards within the enclosure. About 60m to the ESE of the enclosure is a ring ditch 7m in diameter that indicates the remains of a barrow or burial mound. Numerous other cropmarks in the vicinity represent the remains of other prehistoric structures and deposits.

The scheduled area is irregular on plan to include the remains described above and an area around them within which evidence relating to the monument's construction, use and abandonment is expected to survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map. The monument was first scheduled in 1994, but the documentation did not meet modern standards: the present amendment rectifies this.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance because of its potential to make a significant addition to knowledge and understanding of prehistoric enclosures. The survival of a multivallate enclosure with a wide outer ditch, a narrower inner ditch and clear evidence for internal features is rare in its regional context. This enclosure is well defined on aerial photographs and has considerable complexity, giving high potential for a sequence of construction and occupation. The presence of a barrow and other features outside the enclosure further enhances the monument's potential and can indicate how an enclosure might relate to other prehistoric features. The importance of the monument is greatly enhanced by its association with the wider landscape of prehistoric settlement on the N shore of the Montrose Basin. The archaeological landscape here forms an important concentration of evidence for social and economic change in eastern Scotland between 2000 BC and AD 1000. Our understanding of the distribution and character of prehistoric enclosures and funerary sites would be diminished if this monument was to be lost or damaged.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

RCAHMS records the monument as NO65NE 25. The Angus Sites and Monuments Record reference is NO65NE0025.

ReferencesRCAHMS Aerial Photographs AN5676, B46220.

Canmore

https://canmore.org.uk/site/35677/

HER/SMR Reference

Angus SMR NO65NE0025

Source: Historic Environment Scotland