More information : [SE 20370695] Camp [G.T.] (1)
An earthwork on Castle Hill above Denby Dale on the slope of the Hill which is now tilled. A nearly square enclosure of which only two sides and a rounded angle are left. There is an entrance on the west side, and an external ditch ten or twelve feet wide. There appears to have been a landslip on the south side which has altered the form of the bank. Domesday Book mentions a vaccaria at Denby (a). (2)
A hill fort near Denby SE 2007. (3)
Plan of earthwork [AO: 61:213:3]. (4)
The remains of the earthwork consist of an L shaped rampart with rounded angle and broad ditch. The rampart stands 0.8 m high above the enclosed hold and 1.6m high above the ditch. A slight lowering of the inner bank on the west may be the entrance referred to by authority 2. This lowering of the bank does not appear to be contemporary with the feature, but probably a later path trodden down by cattle. There is little evidence to confirm the use of this earthwork as a hill-fort. It is not ideally sited for such a purpose and is overlooked by rising ground to the N and E. The suggestion of a vaccariais a more likely one, and the fragmentary remains bear someresemblance to the presumed vaccaria of Meg. Dike (see 01 NW 16) Mr.J.P.Toomey stated that local authoritive opinion now considers this earthwork to be the vaccaria mentioned in Domesday Book. (5)
See A.P's. (6)
Survey of 18.7.61. unchanged. (7)
SE 205069. Quantities of flint tools and waste, with two polished
stone axe fragments, one Group VI (Great Langdale) the other Group XV Lake District), were recovered from a ploughed field within the earthwork by B Spence and pupils of Birds Edge Junior School in 1970-1. Surface examination of the presumed Iron Age/Romano-British enclosure by J A Gilks showed that the southern section of the rampart had been removed through deep ploughing. Flints by Gilks from 1971-6 are in the Tolson Memorial Museum. The evidence obtained suggests occupation during the later Neolithic period and Early Bronze Age, around 2,500 to 1,800 BC. The possibility of the earthwork being of Neolithic date cannot be ruled out.
Authority 13 describes it as a roughly oval enclosure not easily traceable for its full extant; of uncertain date, probably Iron Age with possible Neolithic origins. Scheduled as an Iron Age
hillfort. (8-13)
Summary accounts of current dating. (14-15)
SE 205 069. Castle Hill, Iron Age hillfort. Scheduled No WY/1246.
(16)
SE 2037 0695 The remains of a probably roughly oval enclosure lying immediately below the summit of Castle Hill, near Denby Dale. The earthwork survives as an L-shaped length of bank and external ditch, the bank averaging 9m wide by 0.6m high. Along the western side of the enclosure the ditch is 4.0m wide by 0.3m deep; along the souther side it has been heavily disturbed by 19th century quarrying which has taken place along a seam of rock aligned north-west to south-east along the hillside.
Localised surface collection took place over the site in the early 1970's, and an excavation was planned but apparently never carried out. The material collected comprised two fragments of polished stone axe (Group VI: Great Langdale and Group XV: Lake District) and a flint assemblage dated to the Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (17a). No Iron Age material was recovered, and alothough there is no clear relationship between the surface material and the enclosure, it would seem more likely that the enclosure was Neolithic/Early Bronze Age in date rather than Iron Age.
The enclosure was surveyed by the RCHME in February 1996 during the Industry and Enclosure in the Neolithic Project. See archive report and survey plan at 1:1000 scale. (17)
|