Rubers Law

Iron Age Hillfort and Signal Station

A number of structures have been built on or around the summit of Rubers Law. The earliest may have been an Early Iron Age hill fort or oppidum, represented by the remains of an outer wall, running at the same level around the hilltop, enclosing an area of 7 acres (2.8 ha) with a well-marked entrance to the south. No Roman masonry has been incorporated into this wall, suggesting an early date, though it is also possible that it could be the wall of a cattle compound associated with a later post-Roman fort.

A Roman signal station on the hilltop may be inferred from the presence of many Roman dressed sandstone blocks on the hill, many decorated with a diamond pattern. The same pattern was found on stones at the Roman site of Castlecary on the Antonine Wall. These leave no doubt that a Roman building once stood on the hilltop, and in that position this could only have been a signal station. A workman digging field drains on the south-east side of the hill in 1863, 400 feet (120 m) below the summit, discovered a hoard of bronze vessels of Roman age. These included a beautifully decorated handle of a bronze ewer, and the handles, rims and fragments of about a dozen other vessels. These are now held in Hawick Museum.

A post-Roman fort, consisting of an inner enclosure or citadel on the summit of the hill, and an annex to the south including the southern rock ridge and the plateau, was built of loose boulders but also incorporated masonry from the earlier Roman building. The citadel measured 235 by 105 feet (72 by 32 m) and the annex was 300 feet (91 m) long. The structure is one known as a “nuclear fort” of the Early Middle Ages. A hut circle within the citadel was excavated in 1907 but no remains were found apart from small quantities of charcoal and burnt bones.

Sites near Rubers Law