Past Meetings
Field Meeting - Upland Landscapes in Northumberland and Southern Scotland
Saturday 10th - Sunday 11th September 2011
This field visit was the first to be organised by the forum and took place over a weekend in early September.
We met in Rothbury, Northumberland to go to our first site at Lordenshaws which enabled members to look at and debate the features of the rock art and the Iron Age hill fort with its multi-vallate phased construction and Romano-British roundhouses. The possible tri-radial cairns were also briefly visited. After a lunch in Alwinton, we visited the hill fort at Castle Hill, accessed via Clennell Street. Various features including rough scoop settlements were visible.
Rock Art At Lordenshores
Members then drove to Peebles, which was the venue for the start of the Round Britain Bike race and which made driving and road crossing a little interesting. We were entertained by the Peebles Archaeological Society in the local museum and concluded the evening with a meal.
Stormy Weather At Castle Hills
The next morning we met early to visit several sites in the Meldon Hills area just west of Peebles. The first site a Neolithic pit enclosure by Meldon Bridge was excavated by Colin Burgess in the 1970s.
We then went further onwards and upwards onto the White Meldon to look at various features including a field system, several platform settlements, and a very large Iron Age hill fort with enclosed roundhouses. The site of the fort afforded good views of the watershed between the Tweed and Forth valleys and showed the strategic importance of the landscape. After a picnic lunch (provided by the members of Peebles Archaeological Society) we aimed for South Hill Head which has two successive enclosures one inside the other. One interesting feature I had not seen before was a ring grooved house just traceable in the heather.
A very worthwhile weekend and many thanks to Peebles AS for their hosting of Saturday evening and Rachel Crellin for doing all the organising.
Chris Butterworth
Coquetdale Community Archaeology
Pictures courtesy of Lindsey Buster
