Burghead Fort
Plan of the remains of the fort drawn by General William Roy in 1793
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 Burghead Fort
Shown within Scotland
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| Coordinates | 57°42′13″N 3°29′50″W / 57.7036°N 3.4971°WCoordinates: 57°42′13″N 3°29′50″W / 57.7036°N 3.4971°W |
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| Type | Promontory fort |
| Length | 1,000 feet (300 m) |
| Width | 600 feet (180 m) |
| Area | 12.4 acres (5.0 ha) |
| History | |
| Periods | Iron age, Pictish |
Burghead Fort was a Pictish promontory fort on the site now occupied by the small town of Burghead in Moray, Scotland. It was one of the earliest power centres of the Picts and was three times the size of any other enclosed site in Early Medieval Scotland. The fort was probably the main centre of the Pictish Kingdom of Fortriu, flourishing like the kingdom itself from the 4th to the 9th centuries.
Burghead is not recorded in any surviving annals and its name in the Pictish language is not recorded, but it may be the Pinnata Castra that features in Ptolemy's 2nd century Geography. The original defences may date from the iron age, but were substantially rebuilt during the early historic period.
The remains of the fort were largely destroyed when the harbour and town of Burghead were remodelled in the early 19th century, but its layout is recorded in a plan drawn by William Roy in 1793. Sections of its inner ramparts still stand up to 9.8 feet (3.0 m) high, and a small section of the innermost outer rampart survives as the "Doorie Hill". The fort's underground ritual well can be visited and the site has a visitor centre where important Pictish sculpture from the fort can be seen.
The site consisted of a walled inner enclosure measuring 1,000 feet (300 m) in length and 600 feet (180 m) in width, which was divided into two wards or courts: a smaller, higher enclosure or citadel to the south west, and a larger, lower one to the north east. In total the enclosure occupied an area of 12.4 acres (5.0 ha) Cutting off the enclosure and the headland was a system of three ramparts and ditches, together measuring 800 feet (240 m) by 180 feet (55 m), with each cut by entrances mid-way along. These were constructed of earth and rubble. Excavation on the 1890s revealed a paved roadway through the fort.
The western wall of the upper enclosure was excavated in 1969 and found to be exceptionally massive, with an 8 metres (26 ft) thick base and a surviving height of 3 metres (9.8 ft). The wall would originally have been even more formidable, up to 6 metres (20 ft) high. and possibly topped by a wooden superstructure. It was constructed with stone revetments at the front and back around an internal framework of transverse and longitudinal timbers, with the centre of the structure filled with stone rubble and rolled pebbles. The ramparts were constructed on foundations made of layers of oak laid upon sand, and the oak beams of the timber framework almost certainly protruded from the sandstone walls. The stone ramparts of the lower enclosure were also built around a timber framework, but these were held together by giant iron spikes - an exceptional construction technique unrelated to earlier British iron age building traditions, instead being associated with the Murus Gallicus structures of the late La Tene fortifications of continental Europe.
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Wikipedia