Habchester Fort
Image 3 of 7 from Borders:
« Previous | Gallery | Next »
© RCAHMS 2013 | SC993205
Please note that selected comments, along with the contributor's name and location, may be displayed in exhibition or publicity materials.
Mandatory fields are marked *
Comments (3)
11th October, 1:36 pm
Cole Henley, Muirhouses, Falkirk
This image highlights how many of our treasured places we have lost over the past few millennia and how important it is to protect those invaluable resources taht remain from further damage, destruction and loss.
28th September, 10:23 am
christina miles, glasgow
at first glance you can be forgiven in thinking it is a hooded reptilian eye - really captured my attention.
Options
Details
Region: Borders
This aerial photograph was taken by RCAHMS in 2001
Votes: 48
More
View more information from the RCAHMS database (CANMORE) on Habchester Fort
Strat Halliday, RCAHMS staff
Habchester is one my favourite Iron Age forts, one of only a handful along the Lothian Plain and down into eastern Berwickshire where it is still possible to get any real sense of their place and purpose. Falling in separate farms on the opposite side of the parish boundary between Ayton and Mordington, it had a lucky escape, for while the ramparts on one farm went under plough in the early 19th century and are all but invisible today, those on the other have survived unscathed. Crowning the escarpment to the S of Ayton, the fort dominates the countryside, but as originally constructed it would also have been visible for miles around. Standing within the sweep of its twin ramparts and ditches today one can really get this sense; seeing and being seen, securing the power and aspirations of the people who lived there. It does not take much imagination to repopulate the interior with round-houses and to rebuild the tumbled earthen banks with timber-faced walls perhaps three or four metres high. All that is missing are the sounds of every day life, lost in the wind and the drone of traffic in the valley below