Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Frisian horses on the Southern Uplands

Cademuir Hill is a small ridge, barely 4km long south of Peebles in the Tweed valley. Yet it hosts 3 prehistoric forts1‘Cademuir Hill | Canmore’. 2022. Canmore.org.uk <https://canmore.org.uk/site/51281/cademuir-hill> [accessed 30 October 2022]2‌‘The Whaum | Canmore’. 2022. Canmore.org.uk <https://canmore.org.uk/site/51279/the-whaum> [accessed 30 October 2022]3‘Cademuir Hill | Canmore’. 2022. Canmore.org.uk <https://canmore.org.uk/site/51282/cademuir-hill> [accessed 30 October 2022].

The photo is taken from the south-westernmost at 356m asl, arbitrarily named by the archaeologists as ‘Cademuir Hill 2’, towards the highest at 407m asl., ‘Cademuir Hill 1’. The 3rd fort, The Whaum, is beyond Cademuir Hill 2.

I must admit I am not happy with the quality of the photo. It was a very wet and windy traverse of the ridge and I was disappointed to discover most photos had rain smears on the lens.

Anyhow, I am not sure if these three forts are contemporary, but although Cademuir Hill 2 is generally well defended by steep slopes, it is vulnerable by an attack along the ridge, from the north-west.

To improve this defence the Ancient Britains built a ‘chevaux de frise‘ (Frisian horses). In the foreground in the photo is a natural gully crossing the ridge, on the far side of which many standing stones were erected over a distance of nearly 80m, of which more than 100 are still standing4‘Cademuir Hill | Canmore’. 2022. Canmore.org.uk <https://canmore.org.uk/site/51281/cademuir-hill> [accessed 30 October 2022]. Some of these remaining stones can be seen to the right of the photo and towards the left.

This field of stones would be invisible to attackers charging over the crest of the gully resulting in disarray. Think of it as prehistoric barbed wire.

 


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