Documents

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The legal document available for download below constitutes the formal designation of the monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. The additional details provided on this page are provided for information purposes only and do not form part of the designation. Historic Environment Scotland accepts no liability for any loss or damages arising from reliance on any inaccuracies within this additional information.

• Type

  Legal Documents

  Title

  SM12349_Legal Doc

  Download(https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/document/600014217)

Summary

Description

The monument comprises the remains of a hillfort, visible as the cropmarks of a pair of ditches. The fort occupies the broad-backed summit of Hirsel Law at a height of around 95m above sea level. It is likely to be of late first millennium BC/early first millennium AD (Iron Age/early historic period) and forms part of a wider pattern of Iron-Age or early-historic period settlement.

Preserved as a buried feature and visible on aerial photographs, the roughly oval fort measures approximately 350m NE-SW by 200m transversely within up to two well-defined ditches creating an internal area of around 3.7 ha. The outer ditch measures up to 7m in breadth while the inner ditch, whose line is incomplete but closely follows that of the outer ditch, measures up to 4.5m in width. The ditches are spaced between 3m and 5m apart, and the medial and outer ditch approximately 5m apart. Each ditch is likely to have been associated with a rampart, although no trace is visible on aerial photographs. Possible entrances are visible on the NW, NE and SE. The monument lies in an extensive field of rough grazing that is bordered by forestry plantation. Part of the summit of Hirsel Law is enclosed to provide a game trap for pheasant.

The area to be scheduled is roughly oval on plan, to include the fort, its ditches and ploughed-out ramparts, and an area around within which evidence relating to its construction and use may survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map. The above-ground elements of the post-and-wire fences of the enclosures and the OS triangulation point on the summit of Hirsel Law are specifically excluded from the scheduling to allow for their maintenance.

Statement of National Importance

Cultural Significance

The monument's cultural significance can be expressed as follows:

Intrinsic characteristics

Preserved as a negative or buried feature that is now only visible as a cropmark, this site is an excellent example of a multi-vallate hillfort that is likely to date to the late 1st millennium BC or early 1st millennium AD. The hillfort lies in a field that has not been cultivated since the 1940s and is currently in use as sheep grazing and the potential for the survival of buried deposits inside the fort is excellent. Such deposits include round timber houses, other domestic buildings and artefacts that could enhance our understanding of the social structures and domestic architecture of the Iron-Age people who built and used this monument. Ancient ground surfaces sealed by remains of the ramparts and also within the ditches have excellent potential to provide us with evidence of the environment within which the occupants of the fort people lived. The ditches and ploughed-out ramparts may also contain deposits and archaeological features relating to the construction and occupation of the site, and its association with possible surrounding field systems. The twin ditches and the arrangement of possible entrances may represent several phases of construction.

Contextual characteristics

The fort occupies a commanding and prominent position within the landscape, possibly an indicator of its significance within Iron-Age or early-historic society. The summit of Hirsel Law has excellent views, with East Lothian visible to the north and Carter Bar in Northumbria to the south. Hirsel Law overlooks the course of the Leet Water, known in the later medieval period to possess beds of freshwater mussels that were exploited by local communities, and would have overlooked the confluence of the Leet and the Tweed, likely an important economic and communication route in the late prehistoric/early historic period.

Hirsel Law offers the capacity to contribute towards a better understanding of forts and defended settlements, particularly those in the Tweed valley. The substantial scale of the fort invites comparisons with similarly-sized hillforts in Northumbria, the Scottish Borders and the Lothians. It is thought that forts such as Hirsel Law and others such as The Dunion (4.9 ha), Yeavering Bell (5.2 ha) and Rubers Law (3.6) represented political, social and economic centres as well as being places of high status and a focus for the local community. Forts are often located nearby to smaller sites such as scooped or enclosed settlements, suggesting either a potential hierarchy if the sites are contemporary, or reflecting a change in social structure and economy and thus preferred settlement location if the sites are sequential. Comparing and contrasting the monument to other nearby forts (as Iron-age forts and defended settlements tend to be constructed in close proximity to each other) can enable an understanding of how such sites are positioned within the landscape, as well as provide enhanced contexts for the understanding of Iron-age economy and structure of society. We can use information gained from the preservation and study of this site to gain an insight into the wider knowledge of Iron-Age forts across Scotland.

National Importance

The monument is of national importance because it has an inherent potential to make a significant addition to the understanding of the past, in particular to Iron-Age or early- historic forts. It forms an intrinsic element of the later prehistoric settlement pattern along the Leet Water and the River Tweed. Domestic remains and artefacts from forts have the potential to tell us about wider prehistoric society, its architecture, how people lived, where they came from, who they had contacts with, provide us with evidence of native-Roman interaction, and may offer an insight into the function of forts. Archaeological deposits preserved beneath the ploughed-out ramparts and within the ditches and interior of the monument may provide information about the nature of the contemporary environment and the use prehistoric farmers made of it. Spatial analysis of similar sites may inform our understanding of patterns of landholding and the expansion of settlement. Its loss would impede our ability to understand the placing of such monuments within the landscape both in the Scottish Borders and across Scotland, as well as our knowledge of the social structure, economy, and building practices of late-prehistoric/early-historic communities.

References

Bibliography

About Scheduled Monuments

Historic Environment Scotland is responsible for designating sites and places at the national level. These designations are Scheduled monuments, Listed buildings, Inventory of gardens and designed landscapes and Inventory of historic battlefields.

We make recommendations to the Scottish Government about historic marine protected areas, and the Scottish Ministers decide whether to designate.

Scheduling is the process that identifies, designates and provides statutory protection for monuments and archaeological sites of national importance as set out in the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.

We schedule sites and monuments that are found to be of national importance using the selection guidance published in Designation Policy and Selection Guidance (2019)

Scheduled monument records provide an indication of the national importance of the scheduled monument which has been identified by the description and map. The description and map (see ‘legal documents’ above) showing the scheduled area is the designation of the monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. The statement of national importance and additional information provided are supplementary and provided for general information purposes only. Historic Environment Scotland accepts no liability for any loss or damages arising from reliance on any inaccuracies within the statement of national importance or additional information. These records are not definitive historical or archaeological accounts or a complete description of the monument(s).

The format of scheduled monument records has changed over time. Earlier records will usually be brief. Some information will not have been recorded and the map will not be to current standards. Even if what is described and what is mapped has changed, the monument is still scheduled.

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