It must have been awe inspiring for any would be assailant or visitor approaching the fort up the promontory, to be faced by the first of three huge ramparts and ditches, measuring 800 feet in length, with an overall depth of 180 feet across at the neck of the headland . The exact height of the outer defences is unknown but they were probably built of earth and rubble. It is also thought that they may be the remnants of an earlier defensive structure that the Picts re-used and improved. 

On passing through the single entrance of the three outer ramparts, you would have then been faced with an inner fortification with enclosures on 2 levels, the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’, sometimes also referred to as the ‘Citadel' and the ‘Annex’.

These two internal courts surrounded by walls are also of unknown height. The above dimensions were taken from a map that was made for General Roy in the mid 18th century. However, an excavation by Hugh Young in the early 1890’s did show that the remaining sand covered mound of the west rampart (near the Coastguard Station) on the smaller court, concealed two walls measuring 27 to 28 feet apart and 10 feet high with a rubble infill. The wall may have had a wall walk, as timber supports were also found and on later carbon 14 dating, this revealed a date of 340 to 680 AD, which gives us the possible dating for the fort. 

Destruction of the Fort is thought to have been around the 9^th or 10^th century AD, but obvious evidence of remnants of the Fort must still have been very visible for early mapmakers such as Pont, whose map of 1583 –1596 shows a ditch across the promontory, and  another map of 1747 that shows broad bands of collapsed stonework, indicating the fort must have been substantial and worthy of noting. The worst devastation to the fort however was the building of the planned Village of Burghead between 1805 and 1809, which obliterated over half the archaeology. The outer ramparts of earth and stone were levelled into the fort's ditches in order to flatten the area for building work and stone and rubble were reused from the ramparts to build the harbour.

During the construction of the harbour over 30 symbol stones were found of which only six remain. These