It sits on an isolated summit on Finavon Hill with breathtaking views in every direction.
It’s only a few miles off the busy A90 and yet I’d never taken the time to pay the mysterious Iron Age fort a visit.
That changed a few weeks ago, when I was heading north on a gloriously sunny evening and had a few hours to spare.
Experts believe the fort is one of Celtic Scotland’s longest-lasting fortifications, apparently in use during the country’s whole Iron Age between 700 BC and 500AD.
But why was it built – and who was it for?
It’s thought the Finavon hillfort was built for defensive reasons – and constructing it on the summit hill afforded a fantastic vantage point to combat enemy attacks.
It would have been a bustling settlement, with a community of families.
Dundee Model Club built a painstaking reconstruction of the fort in the 1970s. It was used in an exhibition at the McManus Museum in 2016.
Today, little of the fort remains – but it’s absolutely worth exploring.
But unlike the well-known Caterthuns forts near Edzell, Finavon hillfort is not signposted.
How do you find fort?
That means finding it requires, ideally, an OS map and a bit of detective work.
Following Google Maps on my phone, I left the A90 and found myself driving up a steep, twisty, narrow, minor road.
Parking in a layby beside a padlocked gate, I looked around for a way to get up the hill and spotted a ‘trap door’ in the deer fence.
This lifted up and over and I was able to easily get through it.
I later discovered there’s a much easier way to access the fort – from the other side of the hill, with no gates or doors to navigate.
Overgrown route
The route I took was pretty overgrown, but it didn’t take long to reach the top.
Glorious yellow gorse was in full bloom everywhere and the scent of coconut wafting through the air was delicious.
The views are incredible – you can see for miles in every direction.
According to excavations carried out by Professor Gordon Childe between 1933 and 34, the rampart, or defensive wall, was about 6.1m thick and stood about 4.8m high.
It was fascinating to walk along the remains of the old walls, and I had my eyes peeled for evidence of vitrification.
But what exactly is vitrification?
It’s a process where stone fortifications were subjected to intense heat (above 1,000C) to the point of melting, resulting in a very hard, glass-like or ‘vitreous’ substance.
It’s a bit of a mystery why forts like Finavon were indeed vitrified. Was it done intentionally, to strengthen the fort?
Or did it happen when the fort was under attack from hostile forces?
There’s also the theory that the builders of hillforts destroyed them when they’d fallen out of use – possibly for ritual purposes, as a sort of ‘decommissioning’ process.
But how did people, around 2,500 years ago, find the technology to melt and fuse rock, turning the hilltop fortress into impregnable ‘glass’?
Some believe the extreme heat required was achieved using a combination of rock, timber, charcoal and turf – and the right wind conditions were required to ‘fan’ the fire.
However, such theories are still hotly debated among archaeologists.
Joy at finding vitrification!
Having ambled round and into the fort for a good half hour, I found, to my delight, evidence of vitrification on the northern rampart and southern flank.
I also found the huge well, or cistern, from which the inhabitants would’ve taken water.
It’s more or less filled in now, unsurprisingly, and there’s no sign of water.
I spent a while fantasising about the lives of those who once lived here. The mind boggles!
Who lived at Finavon hillfort?
What did they wear? Were they always on the lookout for attackers?
Did they play music or indulge in any hobbies – or were they solely focused on surviving?
Did they hang out round the well while they fetched water, chatting about animals they were hunting, or had caught?
It’s a lonely spot, and perhaps hard to imagine it once bustling with life.
But during his excavations in the 1930s, Professor Childe discovered the well, a row of dwellings with hearths, and evidence of spinning, pottery-making and metal-working.
What was found at Finavon hillfort?
All sorts of goodies were found at the fort, including pottery fragments, stone whorls (components of spindles, used in hand-spinning), flints, and rings.
The fort would have been ‘timber-laced’, which means it featured walls built with a framework of timber interwoven with stone or earth.
The timber framework offered structural support and stability, while the stone or earth added extra protection.
Meanwhile, a piece of sandstone bearing a cup and groove mark surrounded by two concentric rings was found at ground level in 1987.
It’s housed at the McManus Museum in Dundee.
Can you expect company on the hill?
There’s a real feeling of remoteness about the place – despite it being so close to the A90.
I saw nobody during my visit and it seems likely most people would have the place all to themselves.
I made my way down the hill and back to my car via an alternative route – a pleasant, winding, grassy track that led down through trees and past a phone mast.
It’s a lovely walk at any time of the year – but it can get incredibly windy on the summit.
I’d love to return to experience a sunset, or sunrise, here, soon.
With views like that, and an atmosphere to boot, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t disappoint.
Conversation