Rispain Camp

About Rispain Camp

Rispain Camp, with its impressive earthworks, and broad sloping interior, was excavated in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Its amazing state of preservation and the evidence of engineering had led antiquarians to believe it was either Roman or mediaeval. Its gateway and deep ditches are still well defined and etched on the landscape. Archaeologists discovered that this impressive fortified site, with its unusually deep ditches and views over surrounding rich farmland, was not a Roman Camp, as the Victorians thought. Instead it is thought to be a native fortified farmstead enclosing three roundhouses and dating to the mid 1st Century AD. The name “Rispain” comes from the local Cumbric language (akin to Old Welsh) “Rhwos-pen”, meaning head of the cultivated country. The Romans called the native people here the “Novantae”. We know there was trading and contact with the Roman Empire, even if there is no evidence of military camps south of the Bladnoch. This area is abundant with evidence of Iron Age occupation, such as hilltop fortified sites at the Fell of Barhullion, and crannogs – loch dwellings on piles – in many of the inland lochs of the Machars. Nearby in Whithorn, you can visit the Whithorn Trust's fully reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse, based on archaeological evidence from Black Loch of Myrton, a few miles away.
There is a car park for visitors at the foot of the slope. If you prefer to walk, Rispain Camp can now be reached from Whithorn off-road via a grassy footpath, part-fenced and partly in open fields, which is part of the Whithorn Way, a 155 mile walk from Glasgow Cathedral to Whithorn, following the westerly pilgrim route to Whithorn dating to the Middle Ages. You can extend your off-road walk by going across the wooden footbridge where you turn right for Rispain; you follow a track through woodland, which is alive with snowdrops in winter, and across the Glasserton Road towards the footpath along the ridge towards Glasserton crossroads and, if you're out for the day, you can continue to follow the surfaced footpath from Glasserton Church to St Ninian's Cave.