The Doune of Relugas is a

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

located south south west of

Forres Forres (; gd, Farrais) is a town and former royal burgh in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately northeast of Inverness and west of Elgin. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions. There ...

Moray Moray () gd, Moireibh or ') is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with a coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland. Between 1975 ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. It is situated on a rocky knoll rising to approximately above

ordnance datum In the British Isles, an ordnance datum or OD is a vertical datum used by an ordnance survey as the basis for deriving altitudes on maps. A spot height may be expressed as AOD for "above ordnance datum". Usually mean sea level (MSL) is used fo ...

and forming the south east part of the promontory at the confluence of the

River Findhorn The River Findhorn (Scottish Gaelic: Uisge Fionn Èireann) is one of the longest rivers in Scotland. Located in the north east, it flows into the Moray Firth on the north coast. It has one of the largest non-firth estuaries in Scotland. The riv ...

and the River Divie. The site commands an uninterrupted view of the valley of the Findhorn as far as Culbin Sands, 9 miles to the north on the shore of the

Moray Firth The Moray Firth (; Scottish Gaelic: ''An Cuan Moireach'', ''Linne Mhoireibh'' or ''Caolas Mhoireibh'') is a roughly triangular inlet (or firth) of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of north of Scotl ...

. The hill fort was occupied from the 1st millennium BC through to the late 1st millennium AD. At its heart is a timber-laced rampart enclosing an area measuring by . The enclosure is oval-shaped and has a gap to the east which may represent its entrance. Although there was no need for further defences to the east and south, there is an outer earthen rampart and ditch across the neck of the promontory to the north and west. This takes the form of a curved ditch wide and deep, behind which the rampart rises wide and high. Stones from the rampart show evidence of

vitrification Vitrification (from Latin ''vitreum'', "glass" via French ''vitrifier'') is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, that is to say, a non-crystalline amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses po ...

, suggesting that the fort was burned at some point in its history. Other similarly sized vitrified forts within the area include

Dun Evan Dun Evan or the Doune of Cawdor is a hill fort located south west of Cawdor in the Highland area of Scotland. It is situated on a rocky hill that rises to above ordnance datum between the valleys of the River Nairn and its tributary the Allt D ...

, Dun Finlay and Dun Davie. During the 19th century the remains of the Doune were incorporated as features into the designed

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

landscape of the Relugas estate by the

antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

and author

Thomas Dick Lauder Sir Thomas Dick Lauder of Fountainhall, 7th Baronet, FRSE FSA(Scot) LLD (13 August 178429 May 1848) was a Scottish author. He served as Secretary to the Board of Manufactures (1839–), on the Herring Fisheries Board, at the Royal Instituti ...

References

Hill forts in Scotland Vitrified forts in Scotland Archaeological sites in Moray Iron Age sites in Scotland Pictish sites in Scotland {{Moray-geo-stub