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Unless otherwise stated, this image is the copyright of the submitter. Contact them for permission to reproduce it. |  | | Description | Mam Tor Hillfort, Nr Castleton, Derbyshire, SK128837
Mam Tor stands 517m (1700ft) above sea level and is part of the Lose Hill ridge; it is the only one of the large hillforts in the Peak District to have been excavated. Its eastern face is a mass of crumbling rock, below which used to lie the Castleton to Chapel-en-le-Frith road, before a landslide destroyed it in the 1970s.
Mam Tor began life as a partially defended site, perhaps protected by a timber palisade and ditch and developed later into a well-defended hilltop settlement with strong ramparts strengthened at the entrances. However, the remains of two Early Bronze Age barrows, which pre-date the defences, have been discovered on the summit, proving that the site must have been a focus for the local community for many years previously
The tongue-shaped earthworks, still visible today around most of the hilltop, enclose an area of approximately 5 hectares (12 acres) and consist of a single rampart, outer ditch, and a further bank, perhaps created as the ditch was cleaned out over the years. The traces of the two entrances can be seen on the paths leading from Mam Nick and Hollins Cross to the south-west and north. A stream also rises within the rampart on the north-west and flows across the line of the defences.
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