Greenloaning, also recorded as Woodlea, is the southernmost watchtower in this series. It stood beside the road between Glenbank fortlet and Ardoch, with its entrance facing the road to the north-west. Excavation revealed a larger timber structure than the small towers familiar from the ridge farther east.
Visit Greenloaning
📍 Location: Greenloaning, Perth and Kinross. National Grid reference NN 8304 0716.
👁 What survives: Buried remains identified from cropmarks and excavation; no standing tower.
⭐ Best for: A large timber tower south of Ardoch.
🥾 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: Gask frontier background · 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.
Greenloaning at a glance
| Feature | Evidence and interpretation |
|---|---|
| Period | Usually assigned to the late first-century, Flavian Gask system; precise site chronology remains uncertain. |
| Remains | Buried remains identified from cropmarks and excavation; no standing tower. |
| Roadside position | South of the Roman road. |
| Possible communication | Greenloaning → Ardoch |
| Garrison | The unit and number of soldiers are not securely known. |
The remains and their investigation
The excavation summaries in Trove describe four substantial post settings and two enclosing ditches. The fuller dimensions given there are about 5.25 by 4.25 metres for the timber structure. These describe the positions of the supports, not a surviving building. The surrounding installation was about 25 metres across, and traces of stone, gravel and clay surfacing survived inside it.
The post settings showed two structural periods. Evidence of dismantling and burning at the end of the later phase makes this an important site in discussion of the Gask system's duration. Rebuilding establishes a sequence of events, but does not by itself tell us how many years separated them. There were no closely dateable finds in the excavation summary. The usual late first-century attribution comes from the tower's place within the wider Gask series.
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.
Greenloaning 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 Greenloaning. 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: Greenloaning — NRHE 25257 — national site record, location and archaeological references.
HES: Gask frontier background — heritage information and context.
Roman Gask Project: gazetteer — report or source text hosted by the Roman Gask Project.
Woolliscroft and Hoffmann (1997), The Roman Gask System tower at Greenloaning, Perth & Kinross, PSAS 127, 563–576.
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.
