Ramparts, ditches and winding gateways
How hillfort builders shaped banks and ditches, guarded the way in, and lived inside.
Jump to: The words | Ramparts | Entrances | Defence and display | Inside
The words
A hillfort with several ramparts is called “multivallate”, meaning multiple ramparts. English Heritage: History of Old Oswestry Hillfort A “univallate” fort is a hilltop enclosure with a single rampart, a ditch and a low counterscarp bank. National Trust: History of Cissbury Ring
Counterscarp: the low bank on the outer side of a hillfort’s ditch. National Trust: History of Cissbury Ring
Ramparts
A “box rampart” has a clay core held up by timber and boulders and covered with earth. English Heritage: History of Old Oswestry Hillfort A “glacis” rampart is built as one continuous slope up to its crest. English Heritage: History of Old Oswestry Hillfort
Old Oswestry has five sets of ramparts, the outermost being the newest; in places they are over 6 metres high. English Heritage: Description of Old Oswestry Hillfort
When it was first built, its gleaming white chalk ramparts would have towered over the landscape. English Heritage: Maiden Castle
At Maiden Castle a timber palisade topped the chalk bank, needing hundreds of oak trees. English Heritage: History of Maiden Castle
Its inner rampart was once lined with sarsen stones. English Heritage: History of Uffington Castle, White Horse and Dragon Hill
Vitrification is when stones are fused together by intense heat. Historic Environment Scotland: Brown and White Caterthuns, history and stories Its ramparts were burned, rebuilt and remodelled in several phases. Historic Environment Scotland: Brown and White Caterthuns, history and stories
Entrances
Entrances began as simple gaps but were rebuilt into long entrance corridors, so people coming in could be watched. English Heritage: Description of Old Oswestry Hillfort At Old Oswestry, attackers had to run the gauntlet of an entrance passage over 100 metres long. English Heritage: Description of Old Oswestry Hillfort
At Maiden Castle, winding tracks forced attackers into long, narrow death-traps. English Heritage: History of Maiden Castle
Uffington Castle’s entrance was a causeway flanked by the out-turned ends of the inner rampart, closed by a gate. English Heritage: History of Uffington Castle, White Horse and Dragon Hill
Its most remarkable feature is a triangular earthwork in front of the entrance; it may have been a holding area for cattle. English Heritage: History of Blackbury Camp The ground at its entrance was gravelled with pebbles from the stream below. English Heritage: History of Blackbury Camp
Each Caterthun has many entrances lined up like avenues to the summit, perhaps to control who went where. Historic Environment Scotland: Brown and White Caterthuns, history and stories
Defence and display
Pits by Maiden Castle’s gateways held thousands of beach pebbles: slingshots that could fly up to 100 metres. English Heritage: History of Maiden Castle Men, women and children may all have had to fight off raiders by hurling sling stones. Hampshire County Council: Danebury Iron Age Hill Fort Local Nature Reserve
Iron Age warfare usually took the form of heroic confrontations rather than sieges. English Heritage: History of Maiden Castle
Ramparts were formidable obstacles, but they may also have been built for display, showing off the power of the people inside. English Heritage: History of Old Oswestry Hillfort
Inside
Roundhouses had high, straw-thatched roofs, and many had a central hearth for cooking, warmth and light. English Heritage: History of Maiden Castle At Old Oswestry each roundhouse had wooden posts and wattle-and-daub walls, with a hearth inside. English Heritage: History of Old Oswestry Hillfort
Square sets of four postholes, called “four-posters”, have been read as raised granaries, keeping grain dry and away from vermin. English Heritage: History of Maiden Castle
Danebury’s storage pits were dug into the chalk with tools such as mattocks, with a narrow neck and a wider base, then filled with grain and sealed. Hampshire County Council: Danebury Iron Age Hill Fort Local Nature Reserve
No wells are known inside any hillfort, so people perhaps collected rainwater from their roofs in troughs or leather bags. English Heritage: History of Maiden Castle
Inside it are roundhouse remains and a deep rock-cut cistern. Historic Environment Scotland: Brown and White Caterthuns, history and stories
Our sources give dates in different ways: some in years BC or AD, some as “years ago”. We copy each date as its source gives it, rather than converting, so every figure matches its link. Things that can change, like opening times, show the date we checked them. See when sources disagree for the open questions side by side.
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