31/12/2018 – Fine ramparts on White Caterthun
Images
31/12/2018 – Photo of the ramparts. Well not really, I took it because of the surface block in the foreground. It’s all that remains of the trigpoint. Built in 1949 but gone just a year later in 1950. No idea why it was removed. Maybe they had a rethink about putting it on an ancient monument but if that’s the case what about all the other trigs on cairns, forts etc. round Britain! The Ordnance Survey have a bit of a checkered history when it comes to placement of trigs and old stuff. Still I love their maps so I’ll let them off. If you visit this fort have a look out for the block and say hello. If you hate trigs, at least you can have a dance around it singing ‘Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead’.
31/12/2018 – Cup marked rock in the ramparts of White Caterthun hillfort. About 80 cups.
31/12/2018 – Had to bring my own bit of sun today as the clouds were being grumpy.
View of the White Caterthun from the south.
More forty foot thick walls!
The trench around the White Caterthun
Brown Caterthun seen from the white Caterthun.
Sunset on the White Caterthun
The drystone walls are forty foot thick!
Cup marks on the southside stone.
White Caterthun from Brown Caterthun
Articles
An early Angus settlement has been recreated after 2,000 years by a Dundee art student.
More info and video :
A large hill fort, thought to be around 2500 years old, with a massive stone rampart, ditch and outer ramparts – two concentric walls. The inner wall was originally some 12 m thick and several metres high, enclosing an area of about 2 acres. A cup marked stone was found on the west slope of White Caterthun – link to photo
.. acording to tradition, the stones were brought from the West Water, or from the still more distant hill of Wirran [..]
..local tradition at once solves the mystery [of the use or gathering together of these stones], and says, that the place was merely the abode of fairies, and that a brawny witch carried the whole one morning from the channel of the West Water to the summit of the hill, and would have increased the quantity (there is no saying to what extent), but for the ominous circumstance of her apron string breaking, while carrying one of the largest! -- This stone was allowed to lie where it fell, and is pointed out to this day on the north-east slope of the mountain!
There follows a description of an incident “threescore years” before, from Tigerton. A child had become sickly and some people were convinced that he’d been swapped by the fairies, who “had carried [him] away by stealth to their invisible chambers about the hill of Caterthun.” The only way was to stick him over a ‘blaze of whins’. They craftily did it while his mother was out – and his screams soon determined that he was human after all. Which makes a change in such stories (unless, in this case it serves to underline how silly the peasants are).
From p267 of ‘The history and traditions of the land of the Lindsays in Angus and Mearns’ by Andrew Jervise (1853) – digitised on Google Books.
There is a stone with an impressive 80 cup marks on the west side of the fort. Another (with a paltry one cup mark) was found in one of the ditches, and was relocated to St Andrews University archaeological museum.
One of those curious knobbly carved stone balls (this one with four bumps) was also found here, and is now apparently in Brechin Museum, again according to the information on Canmore.
The white Caterthun is massive and one of the best examples of a fort in Scotland if not the best, yet there seems to be no historic references that I can find ! A well kept secret, believed to have been used well into Pictish times.
Talorcan.
RCAHMS page on excavations on the site of White Caterthun, with some conclusions.
Sites within 20km of White Caterthun
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Brown Caterthun
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Balzeordie
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Gallows Hillock
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Bridgend of Lethnot
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Mains Of Edzell
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Beattie’s Cairn
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Balhall
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Gallows Knap
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Killievair
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Ballownie
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Law Of Windsor
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Templewood
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Kintrockat
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Huntlyhill
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The Burn
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Capo
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Vayne
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Haer Cairn
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St Ninian’s Well
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Witch Hillock
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Melgund Cottage
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Green Cairn
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Noranside
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Aberlemno 3
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Aberlemno 2
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Aberlemno
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Waggles
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Finavon Hillfort
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Finavon
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Fountain Hillock
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Balmakewan
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Law Of Coull
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St Arnold’s Seat
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Colmeallie
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Hatton
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Ogil
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Carsegownie
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Den Wood
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Fordhouses
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Easter Memus
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Fettercairn
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Hill of Finavon
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Turin Hill
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Glen Wood
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Turinhill Craigs
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Fettercairn House
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Gallows Knowe
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Pitscandly
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Westerton
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Old Montrose Cursus
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Battledykes
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Mile Cairn
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Guthrie Hill
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Red Castle
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Tarfside, Blue Cairn
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Pitscandlie
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The Ring
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Carse Grey
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Reswallie
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Gallow Hill (Cortachy) 2
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Gallow Hill (Cortachy)
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Canterland
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Burnfoot
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Morphie
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Girdlestane
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Hill of Milton
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Maryton
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Stone of Morphie
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St Ringan’s Cairn
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Strathfinella Hill
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Cairn Knap
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Cairn O’ Mount
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Bradieston
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Cairn O’ Mount 2
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Cortachy
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West Bradieston
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Bell Hillock
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Dumbarrow Hill
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Whitehillocks
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White Cairn
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Whitehillocks Plantation
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Grasslet
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Smart’s Cairn
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Tower Of Johnston
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Garvock Hill
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Wheen 4
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Douglamuir
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Wheen3
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Wheen 2
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Caddam
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Wheen
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Balnagarrow
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Barnhill
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Meams Farm
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Kirriemuir Hill
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Glen Mark
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Meams Hill
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