yarrows Fort
Image © AOC
Yarrows Fort on the ridge, from the SE
a Summary
On a flat oval plateau, with surrounding steep banks or cliffs, are the remains of what could be an Iron Age fort. Cliffs form natural defences and the whole site is enclosed by a low bank. The bank suggests a defensive barrier for people retreating inside it when threatened or attacked. Over 2000 years ago, with the bank being presumably higher, this would have been a very commanding structure. However, no forts in Caithness have ever been excavated and this one shows no signs of houses within it.
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Like so many other forts, duns and defensive hill-top enclosures in northern Scotland, we know so little about how they were used, what went on inside them and whether they represent a more aggressive Iron Age society with the consequent need for defence. Structures like this are not attributable to the preceding Bronze Age, so what changed?
Excavations of other Iron Age forts like this sometimes reveal massive walls, buildings and wells inside them, and sometimes evidence of intense burning which may have been the end event in the life of the fort. There is no standard pattern for these structures, they vary considerably. Maybe different forts or duns were used for different purposes....
A bit more...
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2831
This enclosure occupies the crest of a craggy hillock forming the north spur of the high ground south of South Yarrows, and commands extensive views out to the north and east. Oval on plan, it measures about 90m north-south, by 40m transversely (0.27ha) within a single wall which follows the lip of the low crags along the east and west sides and returns sharply across the gentler slope at the south end. The course of the wall is only intermittently visible along the flanks, and where best preserved at the south end is marked by little more than a stony bank some 2.5m thick and 0.4m high. There is also what may be an entrance in the south end close to the west margin of the hillock. The interior is largely featureless, but there is a small trapezoidal enclosure of relatively recent date at the north end adjacent to a marker stone set in a small cairn of stones. The handful of other enclosures in elevated positions in Caithness are all forts, but if that is truly the case here then the perimeter has been very heavily robbed.
Yarrows "Fort" from the NE
The small cairn on the Fort