<< Text Pages >> Kestle Rings - Hillfort in England in Cornwall
Submitted by Bladup on Wednesday, 17 September 2025 Page Views: 294
Iron Age and Later PrehistorySite Name: Kestle RingsCountry: England
NOTE: This site is 3.4 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Cornwall Type: Hillfort
Map Ref: SX28958463
Latitude: 50.636200N Longitude: 4.42023W
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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Hillfort in Cornwall
Kestle Rings is a very fine Iron Age 'annexe' type hillfort. A small excavation was carried out in 1901 by OB Peter who reported 'I sunk a trench along this track'and found under it near the foot of the other slope of the rampart, the rough foundation lines of 2 walls 4ft (1.2m) apart, and a fireplace surrounded by blackened stones and wood ashes. On removing the backstone of the fireplace an oven was disclosed 2ft (0.6m) wide by 18in (0.46m) deep full of wood ashes. Its sides were formed by upright stones and its bottom of burnt clay rounded of like a dish. In the loose rubble within the walls I found a well-made fragment of the upper portion of an urn of blackened earthernware which Mr Read (British Museum) says, seems to have been lathe-turned and is therefore not probably of pre-Roman date'. The finds are in Launceston Museum (b2). An eroded rampart in the centre of the fine existing enceinte denotes the original bivallate nature of this fort. The banks are under hedges and stand to a height of 3.67m with ditches 3.06m to 3.67m deep. The annexe earthworks are similar. The southern entrance has been damaged and the north rampart is exceptionally fine. There is some sign of counterscarp banking. The area of the main enclosure is approx 1.0ha; annexe 0.5ha. The interior has been ploughed in the past but there has been no recent ploughing or other disturbance. Gover records that the name Kestle first appears as 'Chestell' in c1150. Fox described the site as three enclosures (two concentric) and a triangular barbican on the west side. The fort is situated on an end-spur slope. Depressions within the earthwork are probably the sites of Peter's excavations. The site is visible on aerial photographs and was plotted during the Cornwall NMP.
The excavations at Kestle Rings in 1901 produced 2 spindle whorls (material undisclosed: one approx 0.25m in diameter, the other 0.05m in diameter), a piece of a perforated and ground stone hammer or mace head, a piece of flint, a nodule of iron pyrites and a number of 0.04m diameter sea pebbles, perhaps sling shot. Objects are now stored in Launceston Museum.
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