Historic SiteDumfries and GallowayHistoric Scotland4.4
Free entry for everyone; no membership card is needed.
The Trust's page does not say how parking is charged.
Historic Scotland names no parking: the camp is 'one mile west of Whithorn, behind Rispain Farm on the A746'. A sign at the farm directs visitors to a small car park, from which a farm track and a gate lead to the camp in about three minutes. No official charge or free statement exists, so the status is recorded as unknown.
Driving pin: the farm car park, about 210 m east of Historic Scotland's own pin in the field. The Whithorn Way path from Whithorn Priory also passes the camp. Historic Scotland gives journey planners only.
A mile west of Whithorn, Rispain Camp is the fortified farmstead of a family of the Novantae, the local tribe named by the Romans, lived in from about 100 BC to AD 200. Its earthworks are so well preserved that until it was excavated it was taken for a Roman fortlet or a medieval moated manor. The name may come from Old Welsh, meaning the chief of the cultivated country. A rectangular enclosure about 70 m by 50 m sits within a double rampart and a ditch once 6 m deep, crossed by a causeway on the north-east side. Excavations in the 1970s and 1980s found a large timber gate at the entrance and three timber roundhouses inside, one about 13 m across. HES counts it among the most impressive surviving traces of Iron Age Scotland. The camp lies on the Whithorn Way pilgrim path. Park at the signposted farm car park and walk a few minutes up the track, in boots if the grass is wet.
Historic Scotland: 'Rispain Camp is free to visit and open year-round.' No hours are published.
The earthworks are in grazed farmland reached by a farm track and a gate; the grass can be long and wet, so wear boots. An information board stands in the field. No toilets or other facilities.
Photo: The deep grassy ditch between the ramparts of Rispain Camp, running towards fields and woodland under a summer sky. Billy McCrorie, CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ditch_at_Rispain_Camp_-_geograph.org.uk_-_4603800.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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Dog access not confirmed
An 8 mile stage 'leading off road from Whithorn, near the Priory, to Rispain Camp'; 'After Rispain Farm, the path crosses the road to a shelter belt heading for Claymoddie', then on to the Isle of Whithorn. Free public route.
