Kaimes Hill

Kaimes Hill
Midlothian
On Kaimes Hill
Summit:	820 feet NT12926650 55°53’2"N, 3°23’32"W

Kaimes Hill is a rugged, uneven hill in Midlothian, in the west of the county in the countryside between Balerno and Kirknewton. It is joined to Dalmahoy Hill, on the northeast, and these two are otherwise isolated hills.

Kaimes Hill, like Dalmahoy Hill, is crowned with an Iron Age hill fort. Unlie its neighbour though, Kaimes Hill has been extensively quarried, which has destroyed much of the fort.

Hill fort

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland investigated the hill early in its day but the first excavations were carried out by Childe in 1940. By 1967, only the ramparts on the southern and western sides of the hill remained.

Excavations revealed three main structural phases, starting with a single rampart timber-laced fort: the outer face of the rampart survived to a height of 5 feet, but the inner face had long since collapsed.

The second phase used with a rubble-cored, stone-faced rampart which in some areas overlay the original rampart and in other areas lay immediately in front of it. Third and fourth rampart survive only in fragments, probably built at the same time as the phase 2 rampart. The final phase raised a rubble and turf rampart as its major structure and others to the east.

At least 15 hut circles are visible, marked by stone footings and turf-covered banks.

Many artefacts excavated are now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, among them microliths, cup-and-ring marked stones and a miscellany in jet, flint, and stone. They include also Iron Age pottery, Roman pottery (of 3rd century AD date) and a denarius of Severus.

References

• Site record for Kaimes Hill – RCAHMS