<< Our Photo Pages >> Maiden Castle (Cheshire) - Hillfort in England in Cheshire
Submitted by vicky on Tuesday, 30 December 2003 Page Views: 24046
Iron Age and Later PrehistorySite Name: Maiden Castle (Cheshire)Country: England County: Cheshire Type: Hillfort
Nearest Town: Nantwich Nearest Village: Bickerton
Map Ref: SJ49805286 Landranger Map Number: 117
Latitude: 53.070604N Longitude: 2.75068W
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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I have visited· I would like to visit
Modern-Neolithic would like to visit
Marko visited on 14th Jun 2014 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 2 Access: 3 After a 1.5 hour drive to get here i must admit i was disapointed with this hillfort.Unless you knew it was there/what to look for it'd be very easy to just pass it by.
A good site up on the promontory for a fort but now very liitle to see and virtualy no ambience whatsoever.
One to 'tick off the list' but not one i want to return to.
swithunswift visited - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 5 Access: 4 This area is well worth a visit; the views as you ascend towards the fort are fabulous, wild ponies can often be seen, a cuckoo can be heard in spring and buzzards drift across the farmland below.
The site is overgrown but it is relatively easy to pick your way through bracken.
This is a kid-friendly site - plenty of space to charge about with those replica swords.
Back on the A road, the Sandstone Ridge pub serves great ale, its beer garden has great views of Raw Head on the ridge and is kid-friendly.
Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 2 Ambience: 3.5 Access: 3.5
One of a number of hillforts along the Mid Cheshire Ridge, Maiden Castle has fantastic views over the Dee valley to the west. Now in the care of the National Trust, the fort lies at 211m above seal level and is defended on most sites by cliffs, apart from to the south and east where two ramparts protect the more gently sloping ground. The ramparts can be clearly seen but do become overgrown with bracken in the summer.
An entrance lies two thirds of the way along the ramparts and excavations in 1980 revealed two gateposts here. Excavations early in the century in the 1930s showed that the inner rampart was constructed during one phase and composed of sand and timber clad with dry-stone walling. The outer rampart, however, was more complex. It began life as a timber palisade, which was replaced by a ‘dump bank’ and eventually revetted with stone. Very few finds were produced during excavation apart from a small sherd from an Iron Age jar and a fragment of iron.
Access
The hillfort can be easily accessed by following the Sandstone Trail from the National Trust car park at GR: SJ494525 The walk is fairly easy apart from the last few hundred metres where the ground rises quite sharply. Well worth a visit.
References
D.M.Longley “Prehistory” in C.R.Elrington (ed) “The Victoria History of the County of Chester, volume 1, Oxford University Press (1987)
W.J.Varley “Maiden Castle, Bickerton”, Liverpool Annals Volume 22
W.J.Varley “Further excavations at Maiden Castle, Bickerton”, Liverpool Annals, Volume 23.
J.J. Taylor “Maiden Castle, Bickerton”, Cheshire Arch Bulletin Volume 7.
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