The Catrail is a linear earthwork in

Roxburghshire Roxburghshire or the County of Roxburgh () is a historic county and registration county in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. It borders Dumfriesshire to the west, Selkirkshire and Midlothian to the northwest, and Berwickshire to the north. T ...

, southern

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. It runs from Robert's Linn (), a burn (stream) flowing into the Slitrig Water, westward and north-westward to the head of the Dean Burn (), a tributary of the Borthwick Water. It is about {{convert, 11.5, mi, km, abbr=on long (as the crow flies), and consists of a ditch and bank. The Deil's Dyke was once considered to extend to the Catrail.

Description

The Catrail is discontinuous and although the various sections are not fully aligned they are considered parts of a single structure on the grounds that the profile is similar from section to section. Between sections, the line generally seems to follow the courses of streams and rivers. In profile, the earthwork consists of a ditch about 6–12 ft wide and 2–4.5 ft deep, and a parallel embankment about 8–13 ft wide and 2 ft high. There is generally a lesser bank running along the other side of the ditch which is quite wide but only a few inches high. The main bank is on the north-east side of the ditch. The Catrail cuts across the upper Teviot valley, separating the low-lying farmland to the north-east around Hawick in Teviotdale from the hillier up-river country to the south-west.

Interpretation

It is not known when or by whom the Catrail was made, or for what purpose. However, since it is not substantial enough to be an effective military barrier, it seems likely to have been a territorial boundary marker, possibly dating from the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...

. The philosopher, poet and historian John Veitch undertook a survey of the Catrail in the late 19th Century and devoted a chapter to it in his ''History and Poetry of the Scottish Border'', Volume 1 (1893). He believed that it had been constructed early in 7th Century to mark the south-eastern boundary of the territory held by the Strathclyde Britons.Veitch, John (1893), ''History and Poetry of the Scottish Border'', Volume 1, William Blackwood and Sons, pp. 183 - 20

References

Archaeological sites in the Scottish Borders Ancient dikes Scheduled monuments in the Scottish Borders Linear earthworks