<< Our Photo Pages >> Castle Hill (Whittonstall) - Ancient Village or Settlement in England in Northumberland
Submitted by Anne T on Wednesday, 12 April 2017 Page Views: 1585
Multi-periodSite Name: Castle Hill (Whittonstall)Country: England
NOTE: This site is 5.256 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Northumberland Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Ebchester Nearest Village: New Ridley / Whittonstall
Map Ref: NZ05585801
Latitude: 54.916762N Longitude: 1.914482W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Anne T visited on 12th Apr 2017 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 3 Access: 5 Castle Hill, between New Ridley and Whittonstall, Northumberland: This is only a couple of miles from our house, and being a lovely sunny evening, decided to try and find some of the earthworks on the OS map.
This site has the advantage of being close to Wheelbirks Farm with its café, unpasteurised milk and wonderful ice cream. Parking in the layby almost at the junction of the B6309 and the Lead Road, we walked along the busy main road for a couple of hundred yards until we reached the far end of the Castle Hill plantation. Here, the stone wall falls back from the road, and you can walk through to the brambles to the wall. An old gate (?) has been placed so the bars act as a ladder to climb over either into the plantation or the pastureland.
Standing at the stone wall, its possible to see the hump of the settlement with one accompanying outer ditch in front of you. Clambering over into the grassy field (didn't see anyone to ask - sorry), a quick walk along this corner of the field brought the whole of the settlement platform into view. It was much easier to see with the naked eye, rather than try and capture with the camera. Logging onto Pastscape when I got home, I was fascinated to read the history and interpretation of this very ordinary site. Obviously a lot more interesting in the past!
We did go on to Whittonstall to try to find the manorial earthworks not far from The Anchor pub, but these have all been ploughed out. We did carry on to Ebchester, near Newlands, where the line of Dere Street can be seen in the fields to the north east of the B6309. From the gate in the field near the layby almost opposite the junction with the road to Newlands, you can see a cross-section of the road. Interesting.
Marked on the OS Map as a double-ditched roughly rectangular 'settlement', the Pastscape Monument No. 20275 gives us some fascinating details about this site.
Originally excavated in 1951, the site was interpreted as an 'alleged Roman fortlet', sitting next to Dere Street, where it takes a sharp bend. During this excavation, Mesolithic and Neolithic flints were found, together with a nearby barrow, which was removed. The site was "re-excavated in 1974-5 by K Greene and S Speak. Two phases of Roman occupation were found on the site; the first was a 2nd century AD timber hut circle within a double ditched enclosure and the second a 3rd to 4th century stone built phase. The site has been reinterpreted as a native Romano-British farmstead although a military role for the site has not been ruled out." Further notes describe a "rectilinear farmstead consisting of a double-ditched enclosure with timber gateway through its bank and at least one internal round timber house." Pottery was also found.
Located not far from the cross-roads of the B6309 and the minor road leading north-east to New Ridley/Stocksfield and south-west to Scales Cross/A68 (locally known as the Lead Road), parking is available in a layby which sits on the western side of the B6309 some 50 metres south of the cross-roads. Walking along the road for some 200 metres towards Whittonstall, there is a plantation to your right. At the far end of this plantation, a small ladder/gate propped against the wall gives access across the stone wall into pastureland. From this vantage point, one ditch and the inner large mound of the settlement can be seen.
The site is more clearly seen with the eye than the camera. The Pastscape record tells us the settlement/fort follows an irregular shape of 60x68x60x58 feet.
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