Square Enclosure

A large square enclosure lies immediately adjacent to and is partly surrounded by the Pictish cemetery.  This enclosure measures roughly 30m square overall.  Excavations of the north east area of this enclosure showed that the ditch was approximately 2m in width with a steep V-shaped profile.  The contents of the ditch were particularly clean, lacking in any domestic debris or artefacts, making dating difficult, but suggesting that it was not part of a domestic settlement.  Within the interior of the enclosure was a scatter of eight pits with three distinct characters – small charcoal-filled, small stone-filled, and large stone-filled.  These pits had no coherent pattern and were unlikely to have formed part of any structures. Only two of these pits could be dated using radiocarbon methods.  Surprisingly, one of these was dated to the late Bronze Age, and another to the 14th century.

Although the date and function of this enclosure is not clear; nonetheless it can be proposed, based on the character of the ditch, the shape of the enclosure, as well as the associated finds in this area, that it may have been a Romano-British religious building of a type well known in southern England but rare in the north.  Although perhaps built centuries earlier, this enclosure appears to have been respected as the Pictish cemetery was constructed immediately around it.