Monument record MHG3473 - Mains of Aberarder

NH62SW 1 623 248.

At NH 623 248 towards the E end of a steep-sided, narrow sinuous ridge running WSW-ENE, is a sub-rectangular fort with indications that it is unfinished.
It measures about 80.0m WSW-ENE by about 45.0m transversely, within a terrace about 3.0m-4.0m wide, which is scarped into the steep sides of the ridge. The terrace becomes a ditch in the W and E, where it crosses the spine of the ridge, and in the SE, where it crosses a lower spur. There are three breaks, one in the N and one, probably the entrance, in the W, at the easiest point of access along the top of the ridge. Outside the terrace on the NE side is a discontinuous line of earthfast stones, probably the outer face of a wall, surviving for a length of 37.0m, and in the S, an outer terrace visible, with traces of a boulder-faced revetment along its lower side.
The western approach is defended by two outer ditches across the ridge, and there are traces of another to the E.
The lack of continuity of the outer defence, the breaks in the terrace, and the apparently unfinished state of the ditches, suggest that the fort was abandoned before completion.
Divorced survey at 1/10 000. Enlargement at 1/2500.
(Visible on RAF air photographs CPE/Scot/UK/255:4375-6).
Visited by OS (N K B) 25 March 1970.