Peak District Iron Age Hill Forts
Carl Wark
Castle Naze
Fin Cop, Derbyshire
Mam Tor Hill Fort
Peak District Iron Age Hill Forts is in Prehistoric Peak District, Iron Age Hill Forts.
Europe, British Isles, North-Central England, Derbyshire, High Peak, Hope Valley, Hathersage, Carl Wark [Map]
Archaeologia Volume 7 Section XX. Sir,
I am very glad to find that the ingenious major Rooke (age 61) has furnished the Society with drawings of that curious remain of very early fortification, the Caers-work [Map] (or, as the name was given me, the Carles-work) near Hathersage in Derbyshire. It was fisft noticed in print (I believe) in the tour into that country which I ventured to lay before the public this year, but is much better illustrated by the major. If it will not be improper to offer the Society two drawings in addition to those which Mr. Rooke (age 61) has sent, I will beg you to present them.
The number of curiosities of the highest antiquity which that county affords, well deserves attention, and (I speak experimentally) the traveller who shall go in search of them will no where find a greater variety of scenery, than is there presented in succession to his eye. The antiquary will, however, have to lament that while turnpike roads facilitate his visit, the barbarity of turnpike surveyors will destroy the objects of his search; barrows, druidical temples, rocking stones, and whatever comes in their way, fall a prey to their sacrilegious hands. It has been the case with one rocking stone near this Work, which was too near the road to escape; — nimium vicina Cremona! [Note. A quote from Virgil's Eclogues "Cremona is too close"]
Adjoining to Hathersage church yard is a small circular fortification; perhaps that of the enemy which might cause the rude one on the Moor. I am, &c.
William Bray.
Archaeologia Volume 7 Section XIX. A further account of some Druidical Remains [Carl Wark [Map]] in Derbyshire. By Hayman Rooke (age 62), Esq. Read December 11th, 1785.
Derbyshire Archaeological Journal Volume 30 1908 Page 155. [Fol 38.] Strawberry Lee, &c
"July 1824, by permission of B. B. Steade Esqr of Beauchief Hall (agent to Peter Pegge Burnell Esqr) I opened a remarkably ccnspicuous and well shaped tumulus at Strawberry Lee1, near Totley, in Derbyshire, which was supposed to have been a barrow. We dug through the side to the centre withoout discovering the least sign of its being a funeral mound.
"The same day, I opened several of a great number of small tumuli near the Carle's Wark [Map], close to the Burbage Brook, and near the road from Fox house to Hathersage, without finding any thing of interest. These were certainly not barrows2."
S. Mitchell (age 21) June 1824.
Note 1. 11½ miles west of Totley. No barrow is here marked on the Ordnance Survey
Note 2 A good day's work, truly! Even with a large gang of labourers it would be impossible to satisfactorily prove whether all these mounds, including that at Strawberry Lee which is about 4 miles away, were or were not burial-places, in so short a time; but a similar haste was characteristic of much of Thomas Bateman's work, the result being that nearly all the barrows which he opened, and which have since been further examined, have yielded internents which escaped his spade.
Section I Tumuli 1834. The same gentleman, in 1826, opened several of the small tumuli in the vicinity of the "Cairs Work," or "Carls Wark [Map]," near Hathersage, and found them to contain nothing more than simple deposits of calcined bones, without the accompaniment of either urns or instruments. They may therefore be presumed to have been cast up at a very early period indeed. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Mitchell had an opportunity of opening a similar cluster of barrows on Broomhead Moors, in Yorkshire, close to the edge of Derbyshire, which displayed just the same features as those at the Carls Wark.
Filmed in 1987 The Princess Bride locations include:
Bradley Rocks, Birchover [Map]: Buttercup's farm.
Haddon Hall [Map]: Prince Humperdinck's Castle.
Cave Dale, Castleton [Map]: Buttercup shoves herself and Dread Pirate Roberts down a hill.
Lathkill Dale [Map]: The Battle of Wits.
Robin Hood's Stride [Map]: Dread Pirate Roberts fights Fezzik.
Carl Wark [Map]: Buttercup and Dread Pirate Roberts cross the moors.
Castle Naze
Castle Naze [Map]. This fort occupies a triangular area of c. 2.5 acres. The N and S sides are protected by natural slopes. The E side is protected by 2 banks with a ditch beyond the outer. Excavation has shown that the inner bank is the earlier and is of dump construction. Traces of a dry stone facing to the outer bank were found: this is the larger earthwork, dominating the inner. The entrance through the middle is probably not the original. Access seems to have been gained through the gap between the N ends of the earthworks and the cliff edge, approached today by a prominent hollow way up to the hillside. Not dated but probably late Iron Age. Guide to Prehistoric England, Nicholas Thomas, 1960.
Europe, British Isles, North-Central England, Derbyshire Dales, Ashford-in-the-Water, Fin Cop [Map]
Fin Cop, Derbyshire [Map] is an Iron Age Hill fort. In 2011 excavations unearthed a mass burial containing only women and children. Carbon dating of the site suggests it was constructed between 440BC and 390BC.
Fin Cop, Derbyshire [Map]. Historic England 1011205
Fin Cop is a steep-sided promontory situated on the western edge of Longstone Moor on the limestone plateau of Derbyshire. The monument occupies the north-west corner of the promontory, overlooking Monsal Dale to the north and Wye Dale to the west. It includes a Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age promontory fort and, within the area covered by the fort, an Early Bronze Age bowl barrow and an eighteenth century limekiln with an attached limestone quarry. The promontory fort comprises a level sub-rectangular area defined on the north and west sides by the steep scarps above the two dales and on the east and south sides by earthwork defences. Starting on the edge of Monsal Dale to the north, these defences extend southwards for 225m then curve south-west for a further 160m before ending on the edge of Wye Dale. From this point, a linear feature extends northwards back to the edge of Monsal Dale and is interpreted as the site of the timber palisade that would have enclosed the fort on this side. It consists of a low bank with a narrow berm or terrace to the west and then a slight counterscarp bank. It appears, wholly or partly, to have utilised a natural break in the limestone outcrop. The earthwork defences round the landward edge of the fort consist, for the northernmost 180m, of a bank, ditch and counterscarp bank, then, for the rest of the circuit, of a bank or rampart only. The more massive inner bank is currently c.5m wide by 1.5m-2m high, the ditch is c.3m wide by 1m-1.5m deep and the counterscarp bank is c.2m wide by 1m high. Although no longer visible, it is likely that the ditch extended round the southern section of the rampart and has become silted up and levelled by ploughing since the fort was abandoned. Together with the remains of the counterscarp bank, it will survive as a buried feature and is included within the scheduling. A gap in the double bank and ditch on the east side indicates the original entrance into the fort. Near the western edge of the fort, just north of the eighteenth century quarry, are the ploughed over remains of an earlier Bronze Age bowl barrow. The barrow was quarried for its stone in the late eighteenth century, possibly to feed the adjacent lime kiln. Subsequently, in 1795, it was partially excavated by Rooke. His discoveries included a rock-cut grave built up with stone and covered by a capstone. Inside was a disarticulated skeleton accompanied by two flint arrowheads. Elsewhere in the mound, he found a dry-walled cist, or grave, containing the remains of a cremation, while, on the south-east side three pottery 'urns' were discovered, one of which has since been identified as a ceremonial food vessel. These contained further cremations and one of the 'urns' also contained an arrowhead. Two further inhumations were found on the east side of the mound. In its present disturbed condition, the barrow has a diameter of 24m by 23m and a height of c.0.5m though, originally it would have been between 1m and 2m high. Roughly 20m to the south is an eighteenth century lime kiln set in its own small quarry. The kiln is of the type known as a 'double pye-kiln'. The modern field walls crossing the monument are excluded from the scheduling though the ground beneath is included.
Archaeologia Volume 12 Section XXV. At about seventy-two yards South-east of the barrow is a work [Fin Cop, Derbyshire [Map]] thrown up, with a ditch on the inside of the vallum, which surrounds the top of the hill except on the North-west fide, where there is a precipice fourteen yards from the barrow; at the distance of one hundred and fixty yards beyond this work is another ditch and vallum, where the ditch is on the outside.