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| Aerial view, thanks to Google maps. |
On the way up past Cauldshiels Loch, you pass remnants of my family history; the spot where my brother slipped on a root and fell, and the tree where he carved his name way back in the 1980's. It's a nostalgic area, if anything. I still remember the shiver of terror that sped down my spine as I, at the age of maybe 8, paddled through the shallows-- and my brothers told me there were huge pike in the loch that would eat my toes.
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| The Iron Ghost! |
Today, the culprit likely to rise from the loch and get me was the Iron Ghost. My brother John has a thing about ghosts-- the Grey Man and the White Lady are also figments he's implanted in my imagination through the years. I suppose the funniest part of all this was that when I got home and began researching the nearby hill fort (aka what this post is REALLY about), the first thing that popped up was a local legend. Apparently the Loch is the lair of a mythical creature! Different sources name it as either a
Kelpie or a Water Bull. Here, a visitor of Sir Walter Scott, our areas most famous of inhabitants, recounts the stories he heard of Cauldshiels Loch;
"The most interesting circumstance connected with it, however,
according to Scott, was that it was haunted by a bogle in the shape of a
water bull, which lived in the deep parts, and now and then came forth
upon dry land and made a tremendous roaring, that shook the very hills.
This story had ben current in the vicinity from time immemorial:- there
was a man living who declared he had seen the bull, - and he was
believed by many of his simple neighbours."
(Washington Irving, 'Abbotford and Newstead Abbey', 1835)
For those of you who don't know what a Kelpie is and who can't be bothered to read that whole wiki-article I linked to up there, here's my version of what a Kelpie is (that's the fun thing about folklore; everywhere you go, you hear slightly different tales abotu what a creature is/looks like/can do). A Kelpie, unlike a Water Bull, can do more than roar really loudly - A Kelpie is something to beware of-- They're shapeshifters. They live in deep water or by pools along streams and can be seen as smallish men, sitting guard over their hoard of pearls. That's right, pearls. But take my advice; don't try for those pearls unless you want to find yourself in peril!
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| Looking up to the Fort from the Loch. |
That scrawny little man, you see, can transform to a majestic, black stallion in the blink of an eye and surge out of the pool/loch to drag you under water to a horrible, wet death.....Cue evil laughter.
But yes, I digress-- we're getting very far off topic.
Cauldshiels Hillfort lies atop Cauldshiels Hill, just south of the loch. Rising 1076 feet above sea level, the fort is surrounded by a set of ramparts, plainly visible to the untrained eye. What's rather interesting about these ramparts is that they're not 'only' earthworks, aka piles of dirt moved around to make a ditch-- they're actually hewn into the bedrock! This might not be unusual for forts of this period, in fact the roundhouse foundations on the nearby Eildon Hill Fort are also mined into the bedrock, but it's still food for thought.
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| Panorama of the South side ramparts. |
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| Ramparts curving around the knoll. |
Living on hilltops is an excellent notion, defensively speaking.
The defences are comprised of a continuous
inner rampart circling the natural crest of the summit knoll, with the addition of a second
and third rampart on the southern half of the perimeter. The two additional ramparts are each fronted by a ditch and may also have been continuous features, but
there is now no trace of them along the steep northern slope.
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| Archaeology dog Rory, inspecting the ramparts. |
Two surviving segments of the inner rampart point towards this being a drystone wall while the outer ramparts (some 5 ft high externally) were most probably constructed of heaped upcast from their respective ditches. Surface quarrying has made secure interpretation of the various rampart segments difficult. It could be that the defences are not all of one
period; thus the stone rampart could represent the primary fort, while the earthen ramparts
could have been added at a later date. Excavation on the defences has
revealed a ditch dramatically cut into the rock and a complex sequence
of entrance structures. The entrance was on
the eastern side, though the gap in the inner rampart has
been largely destroyed by quarrying, and the corresponding gap in one of the outer
ramparts has been blocked by a later linear earthwork.
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| Ramparts bring out a toothy grin. |
The enclosure within the inner rampart measures 220ft from east to west 120ft transversely. Geophysical survey in advance of the 1991 excavations confirmed the suspicion that there was little soil build-up above the natural bedrock. During excavation, the structural remains presented as features cut into the bedrock, and at least one circular hut was identified. Finds from this
occupation consisted only of stone artefacts; whetstones and fragments
of saddle quern, suggesting a date in the Iron Age.
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| Oh my Gosh! The Iron Ghost followed me!! |
Looking around from the summit, at least 4 other hill forts are visible; Eildon Hill, the Black Hill, the Rink, and that one near Lindean Loch I can't remember the name of...
I was on a school day trip to Woden Law Hill Fort way back when I was at primary school and I remember being told that the people of these forts, spatially distributed within sight of each other, would use pieces of glass and the sun to communicate with each other. Standing atop Cauldshiels Hill Fort, it's easy to see how practical that would be:
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| View towards the Eildons. |
'What's that you say, Woden Law? English raiders tearing up the valley towards me? Thanks mate. We'll kick their backsides back across the Border. Tell Black Hill we've got it covered.'
Not that there was a border back then. Or England. Or Scotland. You get the point.
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| View towards Lindean. |
Now, as I did my research to write this post, I came across some info that really got my geek-bone tingling. I found a reference to a newspaper article in the Scotsman in 1991 describing a bronze burial beaker found on Cauldshiels Hill during excavations. I don't know about you, but if there's something I like more than a good Neanderthal artefact or a piece of bone fresh from a tar pit, it's a burial-- from any era. The rites performed around death have always fascinated my morbid mind.
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| Circle of grasstufts-- possible postholes? |
Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate more information relating to this enticing burial. I've been to the local library, the
Trimontium Exhibit in Melrose, written to the author, written to the newspaper and in a last ditch effort, I've even written to the Trimontium Trust in hopes that they'll be able to locate a copy-- and if they can, I'll expand upon the burial.
Clearly, the Scottish Borders needs to put a
lot of work into public accessibility... No one's going to care about the past if the information isn't readily available-- there's more to the Borders than Sir Walter Scott.
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WANTED
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS ARTICLE?
Jones, R {F J} {et al.} (1991b) 'The Newstead project', Univ Bradford Archaeol Sci Annu Rep 5th annual report
Page(s): 15
IF FOUND PLEASE MAIL TO ARCHAEOAMOS@GMAIL.COM
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