Defended promontory. The site lies within the morainic landscape of the northern end of the Isle of Man and is necessarily different from other promontory fortifications which rely on the rocky character of the rest of the Island's coastline.


The site relies for its defence on a large gully to the north and a shallow one to the south, and formerly on the sea to the east, although this is now obscured by land reclamation. Quarrying for sand, gravel and marl has mutilated the cliffline and is likely to have reduced the extent of the promontory.


The site was excavated by Gerhard Bersu in 1946. He found posthole evidence of a series of lightweight timber buildings, with walls of stakes probably woven with withies; no daub or clay was identified. The buildings varied in size from 3.9 m by 7.8 m to 5.4 m by 9.8 m. They were rectilinear, with rounded corners, a central aisle, and unlined cooking pits or hearths. The buildings were superimposed one upon the other with little time lapse between construction. No datable material was found, but by analogy they could be classified as Viking of 9th century onwards. Bersu considered them not to be farmhouses but more likely to be temporary dwellings within a defensive enclosure used by raiders for the period of their raid. The beach and old rivermouth just to the south would tend to strengthen such a suggestion.


The site is now overgrown, but inspection since Bersu's excavation has failed to find traces of the bank surrounding the promontory surveyed by the Ordnance Survey in 1869. Any landward ditch has been damaged or obscured by the later track which led to a 19th century marl pit just to the south. Quarrying would appear to have reduced the extent of the promontory, even since the 1869 Survey.


The Castle Rushen Papers contain a reference in 1627 to 'Hangmans Hill' as the site of the night watch-station for the parish of Lezayre. The same source later makes reference to the 'Danes fort' in 1719. The coastline of Lezayre is quite short, and this is probably the only location suitable for the Night Watch. It is tempting to see both references as relating to Vowlan, though the latter is perhaps somewhat fanciful. Bersu's interpretation as a raiding party's defence is based on rather outdated views of Viking activity in the Irish Sea from the late 8th century onwards, and it would seem more appropriate to see the site as performing a function associated with policing the coastline and perhaps also overseeing beach markets.