Ardunie Roman Signal Station

On the Gask Ridge near Trinity Gask, a grassy clearing beside a large beech tree marks the site of a Roman timber watchtower of the late first century AD. It was one of a chain of towers between the fort at Ardoch and the River Tay, part of the Gask Ridge frontier of forts, roads and watchtowers that ran for 37 km from Glenbank to Bertha. HES counts it among the earliest Roman frontiers anywhere, older than the Antonine Wall, begun in AD 142. The archaeologist O G S Crawford identified the site in 1937. What survives is slight: a shallow circular ditch around a platform about 12 m across, with no visible bank. The pleasure is in the walk, about a mile along a signposted path that follows the line of the Roman road on the ridge, through working farmland with livestock. Reviewers enjoy the berries and chanterelles in season but warn there is not much to see. There is very little roadside parking at the start.