Midgate, also called Thorny Hill, contains two neighbouring features that must be distinguished. The small watchtower occupies the western part of the knoll. A larger rectangular enclosure lies immediately east of it. The location pin used here marks the tower, not the centre of the larger enclosure.
Visit Midgate (Thorny Hill)
📍 Location: Midgate (Thorny Hill), Perth and Kinross. National Grid reference NO 0206 2043.
👁 What survives: A small tower earthwork on the western part of the knoll, beside a larger and more complex enclosure.
⭐ Best for: A tower beside a separate enclosure.
🥾 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 · Strageath 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.
Midgate (Thorny Hill) at a glance
| Feature | Evidence and interpretation |
|---|---|
| Period | Usually assigned to the late first-century, Flavian Gask system; precise site chronology remains uncertain. |
| Remains | A small tower earthwork on the western part of the knoll, beside a larger and more complex enclosure. |
| Roadside position | North of the Roman road. |
| Possible communication | Midgate (Thorny Hill) → Raith → Strageath |
| Garrison | The unit and number of soldiers are not securely known. |
The remains and their investigation
The Trove record describes the tower as a shallow ditch enclosing a roughly oval area about 13 by 11 metres, with traces of a southern entrance. Earlier accounts and mapping sometimes confused the two works. The larger enclosure has been interpreted as a possible Roman fortlet, but has also suffered disturbance from tree planting and a Second World War building.
Woolliscroft examined the larger enclosure in 1990. Trenches revealed a V-shaped ditch, but no dateable finds. Its form supported comparison with Gask fortlets, while a V-shaped ditch alone could not prove a Roman date. The enclosure ditch approaches within about 13 metres of the tower ditch. That proximity raises the possibility of successive uses rather than two installations working side by side.
The sequence remains unresolved: the two ditch systems do not provide a clear stratigraphic connection establishing which came first. For that reason this post treats the tower and possible fortlet separately. Neither the nearby wartime concrete nor the larger enclosure should be mistaken for the remains of the timber watchtower itself.
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.
Midgate (Thorny Hill) on the Gask Ridge
Possible communication with the forts
In Woolliscroft’s proposed network, the ridge-top towers as far east as Midgate could communicate with Raith. Raith could then relay a signal to Strageath. The diagram shows this possible two-stage connection for Midgate (Thorny Hill); it does not claim a demonstrated direct view to the fort.
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: Midgate (Thorny Hill) — NRHE 26952 — national site record, location and archaeological references.
HES scheduled monument record — SM5400. HES designation records are available through Trove.
Woolliscroft: Midgate, report of the 1990 investigation — 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.
