Oakmere hill fort | |
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General information | |
Architectural style | Iron Age hill fort |
Country | England |
Coordinates | 53°12′22″N2°38′08″W / 53.206022°N 2.635518°W Coordinates: 53°12′22″N2°38′08″W / 53.206022°N 2.635518°W |
Technical details | |
Size | 2.25 acres (9,100 m2) interior 3.5 acres (14,000 m2) including defences |
Oakmere hill fort is an Iron Age hill fort, one of many large fortified settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age, but one of only seven in the county of Cheshire in northern England. It is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Despite being a low-lying site, Oakmere is still considered a hill fort. [1]
Hill forts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC. [2] The reason for their emergence in Britain, and their purpose, has been a subject of debate. It has been argued that they could have been military sites constructed in response to invasion from continental Europe, sites built by invaders, or a military reaction to social tensions caused by an increasing population and consequent pressure on agriculture. [3] The dominant view since the 1960s has been that the increasing use of iron led to social changes in Britain. Deposits of iron ore were located in different places to the tin and copper ore necessary to make bronze, and as a result trading patterns shifted and the old elites lost their economic and social status. Power passed into the hands of a new group of people. [3] Archaeologist Barry Cunliffe believes that population increase still played a role and has stated that "[the forts] provided defensive possibilities for the community at those times when the stress [of an increasing population] burst out into open warfare. But I wouldn't see them as having been built because there was a state of war. They would be functional as defensive strongholds when there were tensions and undoubtedly some of them were attacked and destroyed, but this was not the only, or even the most significant, factor in their construction". [4]
Although there are over 1,300 hill forts in England, they are concentrated in the south of the country, with only seven in Cheshire. [5] There are two groups of hill forts in the county, each with three members (Maiden Castle is on its own in the south); Oakmere hill fort is in the southern group with Eddisbury hill fort and Kelsborrow Castle. Located at grid reference SJ576678 , Oakmere, in common with all of the hill forts in Cheshire, sits on part of the central ridge that runs north–south through the county. [6] A low-lying site, Oakmere hill fort is on a triangular area of land projecting into a mere, also called Oakmere. [7]
Today, the waters of the mere are 10 ft (3.0 m) below the defences at the south-western end of the site, with a 35 ft (11 m) gap between the edge of the mere and the defences; however when the hill fort was built the water-level would have been higher and closer to the scarp, offering the site natural defences. Ramparts were thrown up around the south-west and north sides of the site, creating an arc, and a ditch was created in front of the rampart. The bank survives to a height of 6 ft (1.8 m) and, at its deepest point, the ditch is now 6 ft (1.8 m) deep although it was originally 10 ft (3.0 m) deep; the distance between the inner edge of the bank and the outer edge of the ditch is 100 ft (30 m). [8] The depth of the ditch is not uniform, indicating that either the hill fort was unfinished or perhaps bearing testament to an attempt by the inhabitants of Oakmere hill fort to re-excavate and deepen the ditch. [7] The entrance to the site was in the southern end of the defences and is similar to the entrances of Bradley, Helsby, and Kelsborrow hill forts. [9]
In 1960, Oakmere hill fort was excavated by archaeologist James Forde-Johnston; the excavation focused on the site's southern defences and showed that the ditch was 50 ft (15 m) wide at its zenith and originally 10 ft (3.0 m) deep in places. The site has been disturbed and there are two modern breaks in the defences. [9] The structure was made a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 1995, giving Oakmere protection against unauthorised change. [10]
Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hill fort 1.6 miles (2.6 km) south west of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age.
Uffington Castle is an early Iron Age univallate hillfort in Oxfordshire, England. It covers about 32,000 square metres and is surrounded by two earth banks separated by a ditch with an entrance in the western end. A second entrance in the eastern end was apparently blocked up a few centuries after it was built. The original defensive ditch was V-shaped with a small box rampart in front and a larger one behind it. Timber posts stood on the ramparts. Later the ditch was deepened and the extra material dumped on top of the ramparts to increase their size. A parapet wall of sarsen stones lined the top of the innermost rampart. It is very close to the Uffington White Horse on White Horse Hill.
Danebury is an Iron Age hill fort in Hampshire, England, about 19 kilometres (12 mi) north-west of Winchester. The site, covering 5 hectares, was excavated by Barry Cunliffe in the 1970s. Danebury is considered a type-site for hill forts, and was important in developing the understanding of hill forts, as very few others have been so intensively excavated.
Maes Knoll is an Iron Age hill fort in Somerset, England, located at the eastern end of the Dundry Down ridge, south of the city of Bristol and north of the village of Norton Malreward near the eastern side of Dundry Hill. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Bats Castle is an Iron Age hill fort at the top of a 213 metres (699 ft) high hill in the parish of Carhampton south south west of Dunster in Somerset, England.
Black Ball Camp is an Iron Age hill fort South West of Dunster, Somerset, England on the northern summit of Gallox Hill. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Blacker's Hill is an Iron Age hill fort at Chilcompton, 4.5 kilometres (3 mi) south west of Radstock, Somerset, England. It has been designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Kenwalch's Castle is probably an Iron Age hill fort that may have been converted into a Roman fortress, near Penselwood, Somerset, England, 6.6 kilometres (4 mi) east south east of Bruton at grid reference ST747335. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is believed to be named after Cenwalh of Wessex.
Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hill fort, one of many fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age, but one of only seven in the county of Cheshire in northern England. The hill fort was probably occupied from its construction in 600 BC until the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD. At this time the Cornovii tribe are recorded to have occupied parts of the surrounding area but, because they left no distinctive pottery or metalworking, their occupation has not been verified. Since then it has been quarried and used for military exercises. It is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and is owned by the National Trust. The hill fort is open to visitors, but unrestricted access to the site has resulted in it being classified as "at high risk" from erosion.
Kelsborrow Castle is an Iron Age hill fort in Cheshire, northern England. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age. It is one of only seven hill forts in the county of Cheshire and was probably in use for only a short time. In the 19th century, a bronze palstave was recovered from the site. It is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Mellor hill fort is a prehistoric site in North West England, that dates from the British Iron Age—about 800 BC to 100 AD. Situated on a hill in Mellor, Greater Manchester, on the western edge of the Peak District, the hill fort overlooks the Cheshire Plain. Although the settlement was founded during the Iron Age, evidence exists of activity on the site as far back as 8,000 BC; during the Bronze Age the hill may have been an area where funerary practices were performed. Artefacts such as a Bronze Age amber necklace indicate the site was high status and that its residents took part in long-distance trade. The settlement was occupied into the Roman period. After the site was abandoned, probably in the 4th century, it was forgotten until its rediscovery in the 1990s.
Bradley hill fort is an Iron Age hill fort. Hill forts were fortified hill-tops, used as settlements or temporary refuges, constructed across Britain during the Iron Age. It is the smallest of the seven hill forts in the county of Cheshire in northern England. It is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Eddisbury hill fort, also known as Castle Ditch, is an Iron Age hill fort near Delamere, Cheshire, in northern England. Hill forts are fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age. Eddisbury is the largest and most complex of the seven hill forts in the county of Cheshire. It was constructed before 200–100 BC and expanded in 1–50 AD. In the 1st century AD, the Romans slighted the site. It was reoccupied in the 6th–8th centuries AD, and an Anglo-Saxon burh was probably established at Eddisbury in 914. In the medieval and post-medieval periods quarrying and farming have damaged the site. Ownership is currently split between the Forestry Commission and a local farm. Eddisbury is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Ladle Hill is a 10.5-hectare (26-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Kingsclere in Hampshire. It is also a Scheduled Monument.
Battlesbury Camp is the site of an Iron Age bivallate hill fort on Battlesbury Hill near the town of Warminster in Wiltshire, South West England. Excavations and surveys at the site have uncovered various finds and archaeological evidence.
Scratchbury Camp is the site of an Iron Age univallate hillfort on Scratchbury Hill, overlooking the Wylye valley about 1km northeast of the village of Norton Bavant in Wiltshire, England. The fort covers an area of 37 acres (15 ha) and occupies the summit of the hill on the edge of Salisbury Plain, with its four-sided shape largely following the natural contours of the hill.
Hillforts in Britain refers to the various hillforts within the island of Great Britain. Although the earliest such constructs fitting this description come from the Neolithic British Isles, with a few also dating to later Bronze Age Britain, British hillforts were primarily constructed during the British Iron Age. Some of these were apparently abandoned in the southern areas that were a part of Roman Britain, although at the same time, those areas of northern Britain that remained free from Roman occupation saw an increase in their construction. Some hillforts were reused in the Early Middle Ages, and in some rarer cases, into the Later Medieval period as well. By the early modern period, these had essentially all been abandoned, with many being excavated by archaeologists in the nineteenth century onward.
Bratton Castle is a bivallate Iron Age built hill fort on Bratton Down, at the western edge of the Salisbury Plain escarpment. The hill fort comprises two circuits of ditch and bank which together enclose a pentagonal area of 9.3 hectares.
Beacon Hill, also known as Harting Beacon, is a hillfort on the South Downs, in the county of West Sussex in southern England. The hillfort is located in the parish of Elsted and Treyford, in Chichester District. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument with a list entry identification number of 1015915. The hilltop enclosure is dated to the Late Bronze Age, from the 8th to 6th centuries BC. The hillfort defences were renewed during the Late Iron Age.