Barry Hill is one of the best preserved examples of an enclosed hilltop settlement in Scotland dating from the late prehistoric period, around 3000 years ago.

As well as strongholds, hillforts were likely to have been important meeting places and centres for religious ritual. They were places around which myth and legend would often develope and Barry Hill was no exception to this with its links to the ‘Legend of Vanora’ (the Scottish name for King Arthur’s Queen Guinevere) :

King Arthur left on a pilgrimage to Rome and appointed his nephew Modred to rule in his absence. As soon as he left, Modred and Guinevere seized the throne and the two of them began ruling as man and wife. King Arthur returned to battle with Modred at the battle of Camlann near Carlisle. Arthur was victorious but was also mortally wounded. Guinevere (or Vanora) was found guilty of treason and adultery and was imprisoned on Barry Hill awaiting sentence , which at this time in the 6th Century was the stronghold of a Gaelic prince. Her sentence was to be death by wild dogs and a curse by Pictish druids was to be set upon her grave mound. ‘Vanora’s Mound’ exists today in the nearby churchyard of Meigle.