VANDUARA - Renfrewshire's Capital of the Damnonii
Вставка
- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- In the middle of a wet marshy moor not far from Howwood in Renfrewshire, by the ruins of North Castlewalls, sits Walls Hill, site of an Iron Age hill-fort.
Except that it's not just a hill-fort.
For Walls Hill may be one of the most important archaeological sites in Scotland.
At around 500 by 200 metres it is huge, one of the largest hill-forts in the country. And as its rocky sides appear out of a damp mist and the sun illuminates its interior, you just get the feeling that this is a very special place.
It is indeed thought that Walls Hill may not be just a hill-fort. Its size suggests something far more important than just a defended hill-top. Walls Hill may in fact be a town, a town of the type that existed long before we had towns with churches and shops and pubs; a town that may once have been the capital of an ancient Celtic tribe: the Damnonii.
Before the Romans invaded Scotland, and even before Scotland was Scotland, this land was divided into kingdoms, each controlled by a Celtic tribe. The Damnonii occupied a vast area, all the land between what is now Ayr, Irvine, Paisley, Lanark, and over the Clyde to Stirling and beyond.
Early map makers, like Ptolemy in the 2nd century, tried to show Scotland, but couldn't even get the country the right way up, placing it at right angles to England, so there was little hope that they would manage to accurately position the main towns and capitals of these ancient areas of the country. Was the main defended town or capital of the Damnonii in Irvine or Paisley? Towns that we know now, like Paisley and Irvine, did not exists way back then, and the main areas of occupation were generally on hills, where ancient tribes could live and defend themselves. There is every chance that the main defended town or capital of the Damnonii was on Walls Hill.
And that is where this video will take us, to an ancient place that appears from the mist and whispers in our ear: VANDUARA, capital of the Damnonii.
Another great interesting video Ed. I saw you the other week when I was doing my Royal Mail Parcels, but you shot past me before I had the chance to say Hello 😒😒
You must cover at least twice the distance having to walk back for the camera, it’s what you see that matters so when moving keep the camera looking forward.
I'm more worried some idiot will try and steal out oneday. Love the videos, though.
Great video Ed and a cracking soundtrack to go with it. Tony Iommi would be impressed! The site must be pretty close to an airport.
Many thanks. On the doorstep of Glasgow airport.
The small stretch of water adjacent to the Fort is marked on old OS maps (Circa. 1900) as Walls Loch. My father, who was a Johnstone man, and others of his age group, knew this loch as the Wars Loch. I presume this was started by someone who misheard the original name and it was passed on to others.
Now, it the phone company would quite harassing people to use their phones and use the time & dime to LiDAR the old hill forts, we might actually know something. Very interesting!
Brilliant post but missing local pie and pint ed
Howwood's a small place, but I did manage to sneak a pint in later.
Your videos are strangely addictive. All you need now is a second person as a camera man or a drone and get some different angles. Good stuff.
Standing up to the Romans in a hill fort…..no chance at all
The reason the scots north of the wall avoided the Romans was that they had very few large settlements - which would have attracted the Romans like flies to s..t
You’ll find Barcraigs Reservoir still exists to the SW of Walls Hill, sometimes known locally as Rowbank Dam.
WOW! Wonderful capturing in a way that you're not alone ,
thanks for making these videos Ed.The Sabbath style riffs suited the wee outro 🤘🤣
One of my favourite bands.
Ah'm big Gnawa Murni , high heijin o the Umni gonni tribe fae Feegie Park in Paisley . Guid vid son . Ran aw the hills n' dales aw oer Renfrewshire trainin' for the marathon , ran a different place every Sunday . Na sa braw when it's dreich .
Great video, i miss this kind of landscape sometimes .
I now live in Thailand
and try to discover the old culture here, which is also very interesting .
I wish you all the best from over here
Greetings from Baltex Peter from Bangkok⛩
All the best to Bangkok.
That is a brilliant walk Ed, I do it often with my wife and kids one of the buildings at south castle walls was untill recently still standing. The upper half of it was knocked down and filled in what was remaining of the walls , probably as a measure of safety as I imagine the structure wasn't very stable anymore due to it's terrible condition, I did manage to get some photos on a previous visit a few years back though
A bit muddy on the day, but a great walk indeed. I have since wondered if my shot of the North Castlewalls animal stalls were animal stalls or areas for the storage of various things. I'm full of doubts. Any farmers out there?
I grew up here still live in johnston found this very interesting 👍
I did this walk yesterday and enjoyed it, so thanks for creating the video. A herd of cows blocked the path but I managed to walk around them.
Not the easiest walk in the world, and cows can always be a problem, so best avoided if possible.
Great video i need to visit there. I was just reading about Yester castle in east lothian, you might like it. 🤔... Sorry completely unrelated though.
Looks interesting. May check it out. Thanks.
Magical, ed
Cheers Steve.
Fascinating Ed. Thank you. I lived near there for years. I know Rowbank, but I knew nothing about this. Well done.
That pilot had no consideration, interrupting you mid-speech like that. 🙂 There are so many areas like this all across Scotland where next to no real research has been done. Even many Roman forts have not received the level of investigation they deserve. Going back further to the Iron and Bronze age much of what we know as fact is hypothesis and probability. I think Historic Environment Scotland does a fantastic job, but with limited finances and resources. It would be great to have more answers though. As always, great video.
Many thanks. Yes, we just can't manage to dig all the areas we'd like, although maybe ground-penetrating radar would help things along.
@@EdExploresScotland LIDAR is very useful. It is available as a layer on the NSL side-by-side maps. You can spend hours lookng at those.
I'll check it out. Many thanks.
I really enjoyed this episode, Ed. It makes me want to do a bit of research on Vanduara and the Damnonii. Thank you for sharing! 💜
It's a period in our past that we know very little about, and much of what we think we know is probably just guesswork.
Another great wee video of hidden historical treasures on our doorsteps.
Nae Pie tho ?
Sometimes in life there are disappointments, like when pies are not possible. I'm currently thinking about expanding the occasional cooking theme and taking a stove up some hills where I shall bake a pie from scratch. I'm just not sure where the scratches grow.
I think much history has been lost some of it purposely to the mists of time I would love to see the hill fort as it originally was I bet a few storys of old could be told that looked an absolutely fabulous 👣 walk 🚶just perfect for that time of year too the mist and wind in the background makes this just a perfect video🎥 cheers Ed...
It was a fine morning for a walk, no doubt.
@@EdExploresScotland it's nice when it's like that just right with not much rain makes all the difference
I used to live in the Derbyshire Peak District where are msany such "Iron Age hill forts" non have been truly excavated, just labelled. In the peaks is interesting to note that they were built upon "rocks" that to me slways looked man made cut blocks, some now tumbled, the grit stone also man made in extreme distant past, pre history. When we look at gritstone,coukd well be a geopolymer of sorts . Everytine I look st these sncient rocks, I see tge remsins of immense structures. I reckon the peoples of the Iron Age used these sncient ruins to build upon. The section that fascinates you, outside the hill fort walls, could well hsve brlonged to s far more sncient structure, Britsin us fulll if them snd many towns snd cities built over them. There us a hidden history that many are now uncovering away from the mainstream archeology
Carman hill fort is another possible capital of the Damnonii. There may not have been much of a Roman presence in Renfrewshire. The Romans may have preferred the Clyde as their Western flank in the Lowlands.
Many thanks John. I didn't know about that fort. I may have a look.
Of course, there were a couple of Roman forts to the north west of Paisley in Renfrewshire. One at Barochan Hill near Houston which is reckoned to have been abandoned in favour of a new one to the west of Bishopton with a better view of the Clyde estuary and western end of the Antonine Wall at Bowling. Some Agricola era pottery was discovered at the first fort and if the other one is connected with the Antonine Wall system across the Clyde this would suggest a fair bit of Roman military activity in Renfrewshire for about 90 years or so which may have contributed to Walls Hill Fort being abandoned? There's also the outline of of a Roman signal fortlet overlooking Greenock.
Many thanks. The River Clyde must have been a huge barrier to the Roman operation/invasion. Did the Romans sail up the Clyde? Did the Romans bring war elephants on boats to Dumbarton? So many questions.
We can only guess but given their engineering expertise, I don't think it was. The fleet is likely to have supported Agricola's land invasion in 80 AD. Phase one of Agricola's invasion sent a fleet to sail round the Scottish coast, phase two advanced to, and pacified the area up to, the Clyde-Forth line and three, beyond that up the east coast (loads of forts up there. e.g., Braco). I think I read somewhere that the Emperor Claudius brought elephants over to overawe British chieftains but there was no mention of them being used in Britain on campaign. @@EdExploresScotland
@@EdExploresScotland The Clyde was passable across a ford/causeway that crossed near the current Langdyke. There are a few clues in that area that may be road sections. The road would have gone to Whitemoss Fort (Bishopton) then through to Lurg Moor and beyond to Outerwards.
Great stuff, just for info, apparently the lochan is called Walls Loch, no surprise. The 'castle' in Castlewalls, probably refers to the fort itself. This is simply because it was thought to be a defendable place and the use of the descriptor castle, was not well defined in earlier eras.
Hello Ed. Over the years I have collected several studies and papers on Walls Hill and these were kept in a small village history archive which I've maintained ( with permission ) in Lochwinnoch Library. Unfortunately some of these papers are now "missing" but I do still have the booklet on the 1956 excavation of the site by Frank Newall which was sponsored by Paisley Museum. Frank was a teacher in our village school during the late 50's and 60's but he was also a noted archaeologist whose primary work was on sites within Renfrewshire. I would be happy for you to have sight of the booklet and one other on sites also identified by Frank. How do I get these to you if it would be of interest to you.
Hi Adrian. That's interesting. Good that at least some of these things survive. No need to send or let me see the booklet as I can see it online at the following address: rlhf.info/files/RLHF-Prehistoric-Renfrewshire-web.pdf
All the best.
Hi Ed. It is a different document. The one you mention is a "tribute" by Derek Alexander to Frank and his work. But no problem. Enjoy all your future walks and I'll keep an eye out for the videos.
Adrian, it's just a thought. I don't know whether you have original documents relating to Frank Newall, but I'm wondering if rather than Lochwinnoch Library they could be offered to the National Library of Scotland for safekeeping. Copies could be retained at Lochwinnoch for general viewing. Just a thought. Take care.
I have deposited many items from/about Lochwinnoch with the NRS ( recently the Deacon Court minutes from 1873-1948 of the now closed West United Free Church ) but for some reason had never thought of anything I have of Frank Newall's work. So many thanks for the prompt, Ed. I'll speak with contacts at the NRS and put a package of papers together if they agree. I know that even for quite small items they are very tight on storage space. The paper relevant to Walls Hill is Frank's report on the excavation printed by the Paisley Museum in 1957/8. Best Regards, Adrian
Excellent stuff that bit of Renfrewshire is full o history. Love the Sabbathesque riff at the end.
Very interesting, thanks for this
Nice video Ed. I live near this area and will do the walk next year.
Thanks.
Thanks Ed, fascinating and lovely walk.
Great video. Not too far from me (Renfrew). I did some walking in this area during lockdown. You have just reminded me about it and will definitely re-visit it again soon. I wasn’t familiar with the history of the fort. Thanks Ed.
Cheers Alan. Lovely area for a walk, if not a little damp in places.
Well presented and great intro, had no idea about these place near me, but got a complaint! Where is the pie?
Yes what glorious weather for walk. The light certainly brought out a pin-sharp clarity to your filming. Great combination of stunning scenery and history. Thanks.
You can't beat a low Autumnal sun.
Thanks ed for a beautiful walk with history a plenty what a community that must have been at some point❤
The good old days: no shops, churches or pubs!
Thanks for the video Ed, and I love the music!
Cheers Mike.
Ed, I really enjoy your videos and I'm a subscriber to your channel. According to the Vanduara of Ptolemy's map and page 18 of Stuarts Caledonia Romana, the location of a Fort being in Oakshaw Paisley and thar particular Praetorium being the Capital or strategic heart of Vanduara cannot seemingly be disputed according to scholars. So whilst a Fort or vantage point may have existed where you are in the video, there is more evidence to suggest it was in the heart of Paisley.
Hi Gary. Many thanks for that. You're right. I do nevertheless think that there is so much guesswork and uncertainty surrounding that period that it's nigh impossible to know for sure. Certainly a few online sources at least put forward the suggestion that Walls Hill may not only have been a main centre or 'town', but potentially the location of the Damnonii 'capital'. It's a spot that definitely merits a major archaeological dig.
@@EdExploresScotlandI think the point you made at the end of the video regarding the sheer size and scale of Walls Hill making it very likely to have been the heart or Capital is a strong one and it has certainly got me intrigued.
Great video Eddy. Hillforts have always fascinated me. We had one up the back of the farm we used to have. I would go up there a lot and wonder what it looked like all those centuries ago. 👍
Thanks Robert. Combining a walk in the great outdoors with some history is always a good thing. I'm already looking with interest at another hill-fort.
@@EdExploresScotland Great stuff! Mair power to your elbow! 💪👍🏴
Love it, beautiful footage too
Cheers Ly. 👍