Moss Side stood north of the Roman road, east of Witch Knowe. Its surviving appearance is less informative than its excavation history: cultivation has removed the earthworks, but an early investigation recorded details of the bank and timber supports before they were lost.
Visit Moss Side
📍 Location: Moss Side, Perth and Kinross. National Grid reference NO 00782 19924.
👁 What survives: A cultivated site; the earthworks recorded by early investigators have been levelled.
⭐ Best for: Evidence for a bank and timber beams.
🥾 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.
Moss Side 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 cultivated site; the earthworks recorded by early investigators have been levelled. |
| Roadside position | North of the Roman road. |
| Possible communication | Moss Side → Raith → Strageath |
| Garrison | The unit and number of soldiers are not securely known. |
The remains and their investigation
In 1900 Christison found that ploughing had already destroyed the ditch and outer mound. The inner rampart still survived. He described it as about 14 feet wide and 3 feet high, with alternating dark soil and yellow or red clay layers. The preserved bank made Moss Side unusual among the six nearby works he examined, although subsequent excavation elsewhere has shown that internal banks were not unique to this tower.
Four substantial post holes formed a square about 11 feet, or 3.35 metres, across. Three were connected by flat-bottomed cuts, interpreted as settings for horizontal beams. Those connections add something to the usual picture of four isolated corner posts, but do not provide a complete reconstruction of the upper building.
Later aerial photography recorded the ditch as a cropmark, a difference in crop growth over buried deposits. Such marks can preserve evidence of a vanished earthwork without making it visible to a visitor on the ground. The site illustrates why absence of an obvious mound does not mean that the archaeological remains have all disappeared.
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.
Moss Side 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 Moss Side; 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: Moss Side — NRHE 26613 — national site record, location and archaeological references.
HES scheduled monument record — SM1610. HES designation records are available through Trove.
Christison (1901): Moss Side, report of the 1900 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.
