Swords, skulls and strongholds
A Time Team Special
First screened 19 May 2008

Six of the best: Iron-Age hillforts – a few places to visit

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Danebury
Danebury Ring, a large Iron-Age hillfort south west of Andover in Hampshire, is open to the public and is signposted from Nether Wallop, near Stockbridge. It was excavated by Barry Cunliffe between 1969 and 1988, becoming one of the most intensively studied sites of the British Iron Age.

Danebury's earliest phase dates from the sixth-century BC. Initially defended with a single bank and ditch and two entrances, in the early fourth-century BC a second line of ramparts was added. Additions were also made to the entrances, the eastern one of which was particularly heavily defended. At Danebury, as at a number of sites of this period, clay sling shot and suitably round natural pebbles have been found in considerable quantities, emphasising the importance of this form of warfare.

Within the interior, excavation has revealed storage pits, rectangular four-post granary structures and roundhouses. Roadways ran through the site and these were maintained throughout the period of occupation. Occupation in hillforts of this kind was probably dense and estimates of the grain capacity of the storage pits suggest that more than 1,000 people could be fed for a year and still have sufficient grain left over for seed corn. The evidence also suggests that occupation was continuous, intensive and under the control of a strong centralised power. By the first century BC, occupation appears to have ceased, and it is likely that the hillfort was used only as a refuge in times of danger.

Museum of the Iron Age
6 Church Close, Andover, Hampshire SP10 1DP
Tel 0845 603 5635
Website: www.hants.gov.uk/museum/ironagem/index.html
Opening times: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, admission free
The Museum of the Iron Age tells the story of Danebury Ring and other Iron-Age sites nearby. The museum has life-sized models and reconstructions, as well as finds from the excavations, creating a picture of how people farmed, fought, worshipped and died, more than 2,000 years ago. As well as 20 years of excavations at the Danebury hillfort, Barry Cunliffe also set about investigating other Iron-Age and Roman sites in the vicinity. Finds from some of these, together with the first 'La Tene' mirror from Hampshire, are also displayed in the museum.

Maiden Castle
Located two miles south of Dorchester. Access off the A354, north of the Dorchester bypass. (OS Map 194, grid reference SY 670885)
Open all year, admission free
This is the finest and largest Iron-Age hillfort in Europe. Its banks enclose an area the size of 50 football pitches, which would have been home to about 200 families. When the site was excavated, first in the 1930s by Sir Mortimer Wheeler and later in the 1980s, it provided important details about life in these communities, as well as dramatic evidence that Wheeler linked to British resistance to the Roman invasion in 43 AD. This included the discovery of a burial site and a large arsenal of stones for use as slingshot – the artillery of the Iron Age. However, the archaeologist Niall Sharples, who reviewed Wheeler's excavation records, has disputed his colourful account of how Maiden Castle was besieged and taken by the future Roman emperor Vespasian in the invasion of 43 AD. Sharples believes that the burials were too well ordered to have been associated with the casualties of battle and that there is no evidence that the hillfort was ever taken violently by the Romans.

Castell Henllys Iron Age Fort
Nr Crymych, Pembrokeshire SA41 3UT
Tel: 01239 891319
Website: www.castellhenllys.com
Castell Henllys is signposted off the A487 between Newport and Cardigan. The site is open from 10am to 5pm every day from the end of March to the end of October, and Monday to Friday (11.00am to 3pm) for the rest of the year, except for the Christmas and New Year period.

Castell Henllys (Welsh for 'the castle of the Prince's court') is a scheduled ancient monument and one of many prehistoric promontory forts in the Pembrokeshire National Park, dating to around 600 BC. Set in 30 acres of woodland and river meadows, it is the site of an Iron-Age hillfort, where excavations continue every summer. It boasts the longest-standing Iron-Age roundhouse reconstruction in Britain, the 'Old Roundhouse', which was reconstructed more than a quarter of a century ago. Three more roundhouses and a granary have since been reconstructed on their original Iron-Age foundations. The latest project is the 'Chieftain's House'. The site also contains a visitor centre, sculpture trails depicting Celtic myths and legends, and prehistoric breeds of livestock grazing in adjacent fields (don't miss the Iron-Age pigs!) before visitors enter the hillfort itself.

As a resource for understanding the Iron Age, Castell Henllys is second to none, providing a unique combination of scheduled ancient monument, archaeological excavation and experimental archaeology.

Hambledon Hill
Hambledon Hill is located just north of Blandford Forum in Dorset. (OS map 194, grid reference ST 845126). Open all year.
One of the most impressive hillforts in Britain, the two ditches and ramparts of Hambledon Hill enclose an area of around 12.5 hectares. There are signs of several hundred dwelling huts inside the fort, which was built on the site of a large Neolithic enclosure. This included a 70-metre Neolithic long barrow at the highest point, indicating that the site had a ritual importance at least 2,000 years before the hillfort was constructed. Another large hillfort, Hod Hill, is nearby.

Butser Ancient Farm
Chalton Lane, Chalton, Waterlooville, Hampshire PO8 0BG
Tel: 023 9259 8838
Website: www.butser.org.uk
Although not a hillfort, Butser Ancient Farm is well worth a visit for anyone wanting to get an idea of how people would have lived in the Iron Age. Founded in 1972 by the late Peter Reynolds, the farm is a replica of the sort of farm that would have existed in the British Iron Age around 300 BC, with buildings, structures, animals and crops of the kind that existed at that time. It is much more than a museum, though. It is, in effect, a large open-air laboratory where research into the Iron-Age and Roman periods goes on using the methods and materials available at the time, and also by applying modern science to ancient problems. The farm is open to the public, and is happy to welcome school parties, archaeological societies, and other group visits by arrangement. Special-interest groups can also be catered for. The farm runs a number of day schools and courses for people interested in the Iron Age and in archaeology in general.

Other hillforts mentioned in Swords, skulls and strongholds: A Time Team Special include:

Cadbury Castle, Somerset, the legendary location of Camelot, home to King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table

British Camp, a huge complex in the Malvern Hills on the border of Wales, one of a number of hillforts in this area associated with Caractacus, a famous British king from the early period of the Roman occupation

Yeavering Bell, the predominant hillfort in the Cheviots, an area where every hilltop seems to boast one, from small homesteads to mighty structures such as this. More than 100 have been mapped in the area by Time Team's Stuart Ainsworth and his colleagues from English Heritage. Yeavering Bell's massive drystone walls, 2.5 metres high and two metres thick, would have been bright pink when first quarried and visible for miles in all directions.

Stonea Camp, Cambridgeshire, (grid reference TL 949937) the lowest 'hillfort' in the country, an outpost of Boudicca's Iceni tribe and the centre for ritual practices that may have included human sacrifice, according to excavations by Iron-Age specialist J D Hill.

The White Horse, Uffington, where the Iron-Age horse cut into the chalk escarpment adjoins an Iron-Age hillfort visible from 360 degrees in a spectacular declaration of tribal territory.

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