<< Our Photo Pages >> Castlesteads (Walmersley) - Hillfort in England in Greater Manchester
Submitted by vagabondnma on Thursday, 26 February 2004 Page Views: 14870
Iron Age and Later PrehistorySite Name: Castlesteads (Walmersley)Country: England
NOTE: This site is 2.526 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Greater Manchester Type: Hillfort
Nearest Town: Bury Nearest Village: Walmersley
Map Ref: SD797129 Landranger Map Number: 109
Latitude: 53.612253N Longitude: 2.30831W
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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astralpilgrim visited on 22nd Jun 2012 - their rating: Cond: 1 Amb: 5 Access: 4
Originally thought to have been civil war entrenchments. The remains show a defended settlement on a natural promontory the nose of which is cut off by a ditch running north to south. On the south side is the silted former channel of the Irwell. The fort interior is triangular and at the north east corner a rampart has been constructed to defend the top of the steep scarp to the north which continues past the ditch and into the east field.
More at Pastscape
It is very impressive from the valley. But access to the site on top is unfortunately out of bounds. The footpath goes round the hill and up to a similar height. The Country Park is worth a look round and the Steam Railway is an alternative view of the site - though I haven't tried it.
Castle Steads was excavated 1992 and shown to be a Late Iron Age/Early Romano-British Settlement. The excavations were only limited to 2% of the enclosure - 7 trenches, so they have very little to go on. But radiocarbondating gave a span of roughly 5th Century B.C. to mid 2nd Century A.D.
A hill fort of this kind, the report concludes, are rare in this area. There is also evidence based on other similar ones, that its origins are in the Bronze Age. Though there is no archaeological data as yet to back this up
Access:
Park at Burrs Country Park (there's a clue in the name) and walk up the river valley, past the Brown Cow pub (Real Ales and home cooked food). You can see the site jutting out on a bend in the river Irwell, (to the right of the river). The East Lancs railway (steam) runs behind it. Walk up the main footpath along the river bank and you will go right round it. The path eventually goes up hill and you can look back at the site (now only fields). There is no access to the actual site, but according to the report there's little to see anyway. Just a ditch or two (one possibly natural) which protect the less steep side (where the railway now is).
The report casts doubt on the site's use in the Civil War, believing it to be a folk memory of a far earlier time. The report can be read in Bury Library - in the Reference section. There's also a sketch.
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