Background:
SD79701298 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.
I will try to photocopy and scan in the sketch of the site. I will also soon post a photograph of the site.
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