Trusty’s Hill: A Window on Dark Age Galloway
Just outside Gatehouse of Fleet is Trusty’s Hill, the site of an ancient vitrified hillfort. This site was first recorded by the Minister of Anwoth in the Statistical Account of Scotland of 1794, who noted: ‘On the south side of this fort, there is a broad flat stone,…
Excavating Trusty’s Hill
The excavation of thick dark soil on the summit of the hillfort, in the summer of 2012, revealed evidence of the diet of the people who once lived at Trusty’s Hill. Numerous animal bones were recovered just as before; cattle were predominant, with sheep and pigs of…
A Fortified Citadel
The archaeological investigation of the site in 2012 demonstrates that Trusty’s Hill comprised a fortified citadel around the summit of a craggy hill with a number of lesser enclosures looping out along lower lying terraces and crags. To build the strong timber-laced…
The Pictish Carvings
Only two other Pictish carved stones are known outside Pictland and both are associated with royal strongholds of the sixth and seventh centuries AD. One of these, Din Eidyn, now Edinburgh Castle Rock, was the capital of the Gododdin, the Britons of south-east…
Rheged: The Lost Kingdom
One of the most mysterious kingdoms of Dark Age Britain is Rheged, a lost kingdom, thought to be somewhere in south-west Scotland or north-west England but difficult to pin down, until now. With the archaeological discovery of a royal stronghold at Trusty’s Hill,…
Guided Walk to Trusty’s Hill
A short film of an organised walk to Trusty’s Hill during Gatehouse Gala Week produced by Rod Smaldon for the Gatehouse Development Initiative as part of the Heritage Lottery funded All Our Stories: Gatehouse of Fleet in the Dark Ages project.