East Coldoch DES

The site has long been known from the air as a ring ditch, and assumed to be an Iron Age round house. Its size and superb field of view did, however, make it seem possible that it might actually be a Roman tower continuing the Gask series south from the fort at Doune.

To test this possibility a resistivity survey and ditch section were conducted. The site has been badly damaged by a modern water tank and drainage work which interfered with the resistivity results, but it appears to be roughly circular, c.29m in diameter, with an entrance break in the north-west. Its single ditch proved to be steep sided and flat bottomed in profile, 5.18m wide and 1.5m deep, leaving an interior c.18m across. Two palisades were uncovered, one c.0.7m inside the ditch and one actually set in the ditch near the top of the inner face. No datable finds were recovered, but the ditch profile is obviously non-Roman in character. The defences seem unusually heavy for a round house, however, and there is a possibility that the site may be a Medieval motte.

A long term research project to study the Romans north of the Antonine Wall