Blackhill Wood stood about 900 metres north of Ardoch fort. Here the remains of a watchtower intersect those of a larger temporary camp. Excavation established their order: the camp's earthwork lay over deposits associated with the earlier tower. They should therefore not be drawn or described as one contemporary installation.
Visit Blackhill Wood
📍 Location: Blackhill Wood, Perth and Kinross. National Grid reference NN 8452 1075.
👁 What survives: Heavily disturbed woodland remains; excavation records are essential to understanding the site.
⭐ Best for: A watchtower beneath a later camp.
🥾 Visit: The pin marks the archaeological site, not a parking place, entrance or confirmed walking route. Use existing appropriate paths, respect crops and neighbouring homes, and follow local signs and any forestry restrictions.
🏛 Explore nearby: Gask Ridge watchtower guide · Ardoch Roman Fort
Google Map location · Trove site record · HES scheduled monument record · Roman Gask Project
Approximate site pin, converted from the published National Grid reference (OSGB36 / British National Grid) to WGS84. Use it to locate the site, not its scheduled boundary. The reference is shown at approximately 10 metres precision; it is not a new survey.
Blackhill Wood at a glance
| Feature | Evidence and interpretation |
|---|---|
| Period | Usually assigned to the late first-century, Flavian Gask system; precise site chronology remains uncertain. |
| Remains | Heavily disturbed woodland remains; excavation records are essential to understanding the site. |
| Roadside position | North-west of the road; entrance towards the road. |
| Possible communication | Blackhill Wood → Ardoch |
| Garrison | The unit and number of soldiers are not securely known. |
The remains and their investigation
Bruce Glendinning and Andrew Dunwell's account of the 1997 excavation describes two ditches and three banks, including an inner turf rampart. The enclosure measured approximately 25–26 metres across overall. Its entrance faced east-south-east towards the road. The outer ditch did not continue across the steep southern slope, showing how the builders adjusted the earthworks to the ground.
Three corner-post sockets were identified; the fourth lay in the area of an oak tree. Their arrangement suggested a timber structure about 3.7 by 3.5 metres. A replacement post setting and several layers within the interior suggest a more complicated history than a single untouched building, although the sequences cannot all be matched securely. Rabbit burrows and roots had damaged the evidence. An oven nearby could belong to either the tower or the later camp, and cannot confidently be assigned to the tower crew.
Watching the road
The nearby road linked the larger garrisons and the smaller posts. A watchtower gave soldiers an elevated position from which to observe traffic and the surrounding ground. The close spacing of these installations makes sense for surveillance as well as communication: recognising movement on a road is a different task from seeing a distant warning signal.
Modern trees, field boundaries and road surfaces are later parts of this landscape. They can hide both the earthworks and former sightlines. A modern ground-level view should therefore be compared cautiously with the possible outlook from a timber platform.
Blackhill Wood on the Gask Ridge
Possible communication with the forts
Woolliscroft’s visibility study places the known towers between Glenbank and Kaims Castle within view of Ardoch. A direct signal to the fort is therefore a plausible arrangement for Blackhill Wood. The diagram shows that proposed link, rather than a relay through every neighbouring tower.
These links depend on assumptions about tower height and visibility. Vegetation, weather and whether the installations were occupied at the same time also matter. Neither the diagram nor the surviving earthworks establishes a signalling code, a fixed watch rota or the size of a tower crew.
References and further reading
Trove: Blackhill Wood — NRHE 25402 — national site record, location and archaeological references.
HES scheduled monument record — SM1601. HES designation records are available through Trove.
Glendinning and Dunwell: Blackhill Wood, report of the 1997 excavation — report or source text hosted by the Roman Gask Project.
Woolliscroft (1993), Signalling and the design of the Gask Ridge system, PSAS 123, 291–313 — possible links and their limitations.
Woolliscroft and Hoffmann, The Roman Gask system fortlet of Glenbank, PSAS 139, 167–193, Table 2 — comparative roadside positions. Westerton follows its excavation report where the descriptions differ.
Read alongside the Gask Ridge watchtower guide and the guide to Roman forts in Scotland.
