Geograph - photograph every grid square

The photograph was taken from beside a field gate on the southern side of a railway bridge. In the grassy area just to the east is a low mound which crosses the image from left to right (it is located just behind the foreground tuft of tall grass that is prominent in the right-hand half of the image).

[By the end of 2010, the area shown in the photograph had been blocked off; it is as well that I took the picture when I did. As of 2011, there is no longer a railway bridge here; the tunnel below it has been filled in, so that the railway line is now simply at the top of an embankment: NS4274 : Cycle Route near Milton.]

This mound is, according to an archaeological report(*), aligned with the faint traces of a causeway (from the Roman period) across the River Clyde: see the latter part of Link (at WoSAS); the section between NS4273 : Milton Island and Dumbarton Road is the one shown here.

(*) For my own reservations about the causeway, see the link, given below, to my photograph of the supposed causeway on the southern shore of the Clyde.

[An aside: for such an indistinct mound, the report gives what seem to be very precise dimensions (10.97m and 10.36m, which come from the original DES journal articles). However, some quick figuring shows that the original measurements were, as I had suspected, simply given to the nearest foot (36 feet and 34 feet, respectively); when these were converted to metric units, too many figures were retained, giving a false impression of centimetre precision. Even the original measurements given to the nearest foot must only have been approximate, given how indistinct this feature is.]

On why the River Clyde, which is now navigable to Glasgow by shipping, could formerly be crossed on foot, see NS4273 : The Lang Dyke. For what has been described as the corresponding part of the causeway on the southern shore of the Clyde, see NS4273 : Supposed remains of a Roman causeway.

The course of the railway line can be seen on the left, and the background of the photo shows NS4374 : Sheep Hill, which is the site of a quarry (NS4374 : Sheephill Quarry) and of a vitrified Iron Age fort (NS4374 : The summit of Sheep Hill).