Category Archives: Heritage

Striking colours and great views at Moel Fenlli hillfort on the Clwydian Range

Moel Fenlli hillfort (LiDAR view). Source: Lock, Gary and Ralston, Ian. 2024. Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. The car park is at the very top. Available at: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk

The massive Iron Age Moel Fenlli hillfort is at the far western end of the Clwydian Range on the second highest peak, one of six hillforts on the range of hills. The site is named for the Welsh giant Benlli Gawr, a recognition of impressive scale. It is bivallate for most of the circuit (i.e. two sets of banks and ditches). The banks and ditches enclose a broadly oval area of 9.5 hectares (23.4 acres), set across the contours rather than following them. The hill drops steeply from the hillfort to north, east and south, and much but less so on its western end. The primary entrance was at the west. Both the ramparts and the interior are very obviously undulating, rising significantly to the east.

Natural springs are still found both in the near the centre of the hillfort and on the outer edges of the northern ramparts, and there are patches of well-established soft-sedge reeds (Juncus effesus) at other places around the interior edges of the ramparts, suggesting either permanent or seasonal water sources.

The 360º views over the valley of the river Clwyd and the foothills overlooking the Dee and its floodplain are sublime, as well as strategically valuable.

The hillfort itself is a kaleidoscope of rich reds and purples, bright greens and sunny yellows, all tremendously striking at this time of year (late summer teetering on early autumn) under a bright sun and against a blue sky .

The western ramparts of Moel Fenlli as seen from the path to Moel Famau

The two main footpaths up to the site lead from the car park at Bwlch Pen Barras (roughly translated as (“pass at the head of the ridge”), one climbing steeply up the side of the hill and through the ramparts (visible as a faint grey line on the photograph to the right) and the other zig-zagging along the side of the hill, with one steep stretch now improved with a floating staircase (see Visiting at the end). These were established after informal, ad hoc footpaths began to do significant harm to ramparts and ditches during the 1980s. There are no interpretation boards at the foot of the hillfort, although there may be something on the other side of the road where there are information boards at the foot of the walk up Moel Famau (I have posted about the Moel Famau walk here). See more about parking, footpaths etc, with photos of the views, in Visiting at the end.

Although Wynne-Ffoulkes found stone artefacts that he thought were Neolithic, the Early Bronze Age is the first phase identified with confidence, represented by an unexcavated cairn on the summit of the hillfort at the east end. Early Bronze Age barrows and cairns are common in northeast Wales, but without excavation its contents remain unknown. The pile of stones on top of its grass-covered surface is modern, with some of the stones robbed from the original cairn, causing serious damage to the upper levels. As these cairns were sometimes used for secondary interments in the mound itself, this may have destroyed archaeological evidence.

The hillfort was first excavated in 1849 over an eight day period by William Wynne-Ffoulkes, and published in 1850 in Archaeolgia Cambrensis. It is admirable that Wynne-Ffoulkes published his findings, but in an era before excavation methodologies had been refined and formalized, and before reporting standards were agreed, with specialists reporting on artefact types, it is difficult to make sense of some of this report, particularly as many of the artefacts found at the time have since been lost. In 1921 Willoughby Gardner visited and surveyed the site, producing the excellent plan shown further below, and he discussed the site and tracked down as many of the surviving artefacts from the Wynne-Ffoulkes excavations as possible for reassessment.

Rampart profiled. Source: Gardner 1921, p.245

The most prominent feature of the hillfort, and the most explored, are the ramparts, with two sets of banks and ditches for most of the circumference, with only one along two stretches of the south side, and three on the east side where the natural defences are at their weakest. Wynne-Ffoulkes refers to these as an agger and fosse arrangement, referring to a Roman earthwork or embankment and ditch system of fortifications, and it in these military terms that Wynne-Ffoulkes interprets the site. He and his colleague Rev. J. Williams cannot be faulted for their enthusiasm, with Wynne-Ffoulkes commenting that “trench after trench was dug out” and that trenches were cut “wherever the ground appeared inviting.” There is no plan to show where these trenches were located, and Wynne-Ffoulkes does not describe their positions in any but the vaguest terms.

The main rampart, tilted across the hilltop’s contour, was supported on the south by a ditch and a second bank set some distance away from the first bank creating, in Paul Kent’s words, “a wide shallow slope from the top of which the defences could bombard any attackers without fear of reciprocation.” According to Wynne-Ffoulkes, the bank reaches up to 10ft (3m) in places, but can be as low as 3-4ft (0.9-1.2m). The second bank is also substantial, only built along part of the circuit, although in places it seems to have been little more than a counterscarp, possibly created by maintenance of the ditch at the foot of the inner rampart, formed by clearing debris that had fallen into the ditch onto the edge of the ditch (see my post on Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor for a diagram explaining the terminology of hillfort defences). According to Gardner’s plan, in places there are sections of a third rampart or counter-scarp. At the east, the most vulnerable side from a defensive point of view, and the easiest approach, the additional bank and ditch were added.

Wynne-Ffoulkes describes the internal structure of the banks as “formed of earth and stones heaped up promiscuously,” and Gardner confirms that the inner rampart consisted of earth, rubble and stones, with more stone at the east end where it was readily available at the surface. Box ramparts were common in the area, many of them revetted with stone, but the construction of the banks and any structures on top of them remains unknown. In another 1850 paper Ffoulkes makes no comment about any sort of structure on the banks, although he does mention two sections that were “built in a solid mass (like a wall) without cement of any kind, alongside the rampart.” Gardner, however, states clearly that he was unable to determine if the ramparts were revetted with stone.

The inturned entrance. Source: Gardner 1921, p.246

The entrance in the inner rampart at the west end was inturned, a typical arrangement for hillforts in the area. The outermost rampart was simply open, and there are no flanking lateral banks. Wynne-Ffoulkes excavated here and says that the entrance “appeared to have an artificial surface, formed with stones of some size, laid flat ways as a rude pavement.” He detected a road leading from the entrance to the centre of the hillfort where there was “a never-failing crystal spring” that he thought had a reservoir in front of it. The spring is shown on Gardner’s 1921 plan, below. There is no further information about any structural activity that may have accompanied the entrance.

Plan of Moel Fenlli hillfort. Source: 1921, p.239

In the interior, which both Wynne-Foulkes and Gardner as having a very irregular surface, today largely covered with heather and grasses, Wynne-Ffoulkes identified circular hollows, which he interpreted as “cyttiau,” a Welsh term for huts, but on excavating them found nothing, although whether he was aware of the value of postholes and gullies as archaeological indicators of structures is not clear from this account. Some of the hollows can be seen on the LiDAR image at the top of the page. Based on the findings at Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor and roundhouses are a distinct possibility. An alternative explanation might be that they are quarry or storage pits, but without modern excavation any suggestion remains purely speculative. They are traditionally referred to as “hut platforms,” and a later topographical survey in 2006 by the Heather and Hillforts project identified around 61 of them.

Objects found during the excavations by Ffoulkes, without scale. Source: Archaeologia Cambrensis

Artefacts were few and far between, something that was a matter of obvious disappointment to Wynne-Ffoulkes whose primary objective was clearly objects rather than structures, but to his relief he was eventually able to find a mixture of artefacts. It is not clear whether these were found in the banks, ditches or the interior, as Wynne-Ffoulkes does not state exactly where the trenches from which they were excavated were located. He found stone tools that he describes as arrowheads, and what he described as a stone knife c. 5 inches (13cm) long that is very difficult to assess, even from the illustration provided. Gardner suggested that it was, rather, a palette. Wynne-Ffoulkes discovered white pottery, described as “coarse and peculiar,” pieces of a coarse red pottery that “appeared to be Roman” and sherds that he thought was similar to the Roman prestige pottery Samian. Rather than attempting to elucidate the descriptions provided by Wynne-Ffoulkes for other artefacts, here is his account:

ROMAN POTTERY, varying both in colour and fabrication-both coarse and fine red-black-red outside and black inside-and cream coloured; also IRON, so corroded that its form was no longer ascertainable; GLASS of a superior kind; a LEADEN ornament; part of a BRASS or BRONZE ring; and, in one of the easternmost trenches, just under the rampart, and below the original surface, (a fact somewhat material in determining the age of the rampart and the white pottery,) the rim of a vase, or urn, of white pottery; and, pursuing the excavations more towards the interior, I found fragments of FLINT ARROW-HEADS, and two almost entire, the points only being broken and, to close the catalogue, some small pieces of rather coarse red pottery, rough-cast (if I may be allowed the term) with atoms of spar, with which the mountain abounds.

Gardner was able to expect some of the pottery at Ruthin Castle, and one piece in the National Museum of Wales, and was able to confirm a Roman date for all the pieces surviving pieces, which included a mortarium, Samian sherds and 4th century Marne ware.

Moel y Gaer is the pale-topped spur in the centre on a greener hillside more or less at the centre of the photograph, with the two light footpaths forming a V-shape in front of it. Click to enlarge

From the ramparts the next hillfort in the range to the north, Moel y Gaer Llanbedr, can be seen very clearly (see left), its interior clearly visible from the higher ground on the Clwydian Range. Lloyd-Jones suggests that the proximity of Moel y Gaer Llanbedr and Moel Fenlli, with Moel Fenlli overlooking the smaller and lower hillfort, could mean that they had different, perhaps complementary roles. I could not pick out Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor on its hilltop in the valley below to the northeast, having idiotically left my OS map in the car, but that too should be visible from the highest part of the hillfort. Lines of sight to other contemporary sites are proposed by David Matthews and Erin Lloyd-Jones, but these would require some form of signalling system, because they are only just visible without binoculars or a long lens, if at all. It was too hazy to see the Dee estuary and the sea, but on a clearer day these too are visible in the distance.

No modern excavations have taken place, and I have found no records of any geophysical surveys, meaning that the hillfort, and in particular its interior, remain very poorly understood. Interpretation of the site is particularly difficult without data from stratified artefacts or scientific dating. Wynne-Ffoulkes believed that local tribes may have heard news of the impending “conquering but civilizing, sword of Rome” from the south, and that the hillfort was a defensive response. As to its role in the context of the other hillforts, he refers to the Clwydian Range hillforts as “encampments” and Foel Fenlli as a “Castra Clwydiana” (castra being a Roman term for a marching camp/fort). He saw the hillforts as a defensive barrier established by a “mountain chief who here held his sway amidst his faithful band, hovering over the adjacent country, his ready prey; or of some victorious invader who, distrustful of the conquered, would here have kept himself aloof from treachery and surprise; or, perchance, mark the boundaries of some warlike tribe, protected thus by art engrafted on nature, against aggression.”

Although today it is not questioned that hillforts appear defensive, and many of them will have had a defensive role, it is now thought that they may have been multi-functional. Defence against local livestock and grain store raiders may have been more important on a regular basis than protection against invaders from elsewhere in the country or from overseas. The presence of a spring and an earlier burial cairn may have formed the basis of more complex ideologies and belief systems, whilst the scale of the ramparts may have had as much to do with display and the establishment of identity as with protection and defence. Whilst Wynne-Ffoulkes interprets the presence of Roman pottery as signs of successful invasion, this might just as well have been the result of trade, exchange, or the acquisition of prestige items by the hillfort builders. Gardner, for example, suggested that the inhabitants purchased items from Deva (Roman Chester) or that Roman traders “went out into the wilds of Wales trafficking with the natives.” It is frequently suggested that hillforts positioned with wide views may have controlled large territories, but it is not clear how, from this height, such control would have been organized and maintained, and how protective strategies may have been deployed. David Matthews has studied lines of sight between hillforts in the mid- and northern Marches, suggesting that signalling may have improved communication and co-operationbetween communities.

Two hoards of 3rd to 4th-century Roman coins were also found on Foel Fenlli, in 1816 and 1845. Wynne-Ffoulkes says that one of the hoard, found some 30 years before his excavations, and which consisted of some 1500 coins, was lying on the surface of the inner rampart, on the northeast. They included a gold and silver coins, and of the 1500 found, Gardner could only find 43 of them, stored in the Grosvenor Museum in Chester, dating to between around AD 330-350, all Gaulish from Treves, Lyons and Arles. Gardner assigns the later discovery of around 100 coins, found by a farmer on the northeast side, to the same sources and the same date range, although only a quarter of them were published in 1847.

The name of Moel Fenlli derives from Benlli Gawr, which translates from the Welsh as Benlli the Giant, and may have been a simple association of mythological giants with massive features, like Cadair Idris (throne of the giant Idris). However, tradition also has it that Benlli was a 5th century AD lord of Iâl (Yale), the name “giant” referring not to the massive physical stature of a mythical being but the Iâl lord’s despotic disposition. In this pseudo-historical version of the hillfort’s story, this was Lord Benlli’s fortress and it was destroyed by Saint Garmon (Germanus in Latin). See the full account in Gardner 1921 (available online).

Source: Gardner 1921 p.238

Visiting

Parking for Moel Fenlli and Moel Famau, showing the main footpaths up Moel Famau.

There are two options for parking for Foel Fenlli. First, on the approach from the west there is plenty parking along the side of the well-maintained B-road between the A494 and Ruthin (called Bwlch Pen Barras) and this is free for up to two hours (no return within two hours). Alternatively if you are thinking of combining Moel Fenlli with Moel Famau and beyond, there is a pay-and-display car park that lies either side of the Bwlch Pen Barras . This costs £2.50 a day (at the time of writing), payable by cash or card at payment machines and all payments go directly to maintenance of the Moel Famau Country Park. The What3Words location for the Bwlch Pen Barras Car Park is ///hobble.passwords.device. Other than car parking there are no facilities of any sort.

Aerial view of Moel Fenlli, looking south, showing footpaths leading from Bwlch Pen Barras car park. The yellow arrow shows the more direct route; the blue arrow shows the easier and longer route, albeit with one particularly steep section, with a floating staircase, indicated by the arrow. Source: Coflein

The steep route to the top of Moel Fenlli is at the very end of the Moel Fenlli side of the car park, on the left hand side, marked with a post, leading directly into woodland. When you emerge from the trees and bracken, the footpath goes more or less straight up the side of the hill. You need to be quite sure-footed because the narrow path is littered with broken stone that slips underfoot, and looks as though it turns into something of a stream after rainfall. At the top, only where it crosses the ramparts, there is a “floating” (wood framed and stone fill) staircase.

The easier route is on the right side of the Moel Fenlli car park, either past the gateway at the end of the car park, or more clearly signposted opposite the entrance to the car park on the Moel Famau side of Bwlch Pen Barras. This takes a leisurely zig-zag route along the side of the hill. Less leisurely is the anti-clockwise route around the hilltop, which takes you up onto the ramparts and along a spectacular circular walk around the hillfort; a very long floating staircase takes you up a very steep section that follows the Offa’s Dyke Path. It was a lot easier going clockwise, which I did quite by accident; it was a hot day and those following the Offa’s Dyke path uphill along the anti-clockwise route were extremely out of breath.

Floating staircase

Both footpaths have terrific views, and the walks around the banks of the hillfort give splendid views in all directions. There are well worn paths from the perimeter walk through the vegetation to the cairn, but for the most part the interior is a dense mass of heather and wild bilberries, very beautiful at this time of year with the heather in flower and the bilberry leaves turning bright red, but through which it is difficult to force passage.

The steep section on the Offa’s Dyke Path with a floating staircase. Those coming up were suffering; I was going down the hill towards the car park

OS map showing Moel Fenlli ( near the bottom, labelled Foel Fenlli) and Moel Famau (top) with the Offa’s Dyke Path clearly marked (click to enlarge). Source: Ordnance Survey Explorer 265, Clwydian Range

It can get very windy on the hilltop, even on what seems like a fine day, and strong gusts of wind can pack quite a punch on the higher, more exposed parts of the rampart footpath.

If you want to make a day of it, the walk can take in the Offa’s Dyke path to the north, which also crosses Moel Fammau (the highest peak on the hill range, but which does not have a hillfort) and, further on to the north, to the hillforts of Moel Arthur and Penycolddiau.

Do be warned that if you are thinking of including Moel Famau in your walk, it gets very busy during the school holidays on sunny days, even on week days, and the constant whining of small children being dragged up the path by parents loudly urging them on can be very tedious! I went up Moel Fenlli at about 10am, when both sides of the car park were quite empty, but by noon the route up to Moel Famau was beginning to get busy. I had forgotten that the children had not gone back to school, and the Moel Famau walk was more like a popular seaside venue than a hiking trail. There were no children on Moel Fenlli, and very few adults, so perhaps the best solution for a peaceful dual walk during the school vacations is to leave Moel Fenlli until after a walk to Moel Famau.

Sources:

Books, pamphlets and papers:

Brown, Ian 2004. Discovering a Welsh Landscape. Archaeology in the Clwydian Range. Windgather Press, p.58-82

Brown, Ian 2009. Beacons in the Landscape. The Hillforts of England and Wales. Windgather Press

Burrow, Steve 2011. Shadowland. Wales 3000-1500BC. National Museum of Wales and Oxbow Books.

Davies, J.L. and Frances Lynch 2000. The Late Bronze Age and Iron Age. In F. Lynch, S. Aldhouse-Green and J.L. Davies (eds.), Prehistoric Wales, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, p.139–219.

Gardner, W. 1921. The Ancient Hillfort of Moel Fenlli, Derbyshire. Archaeologia Cambrensis, Series 7, vol. 1, p.237-252
https://journals.library.wales/view/4718179/4729445/269#?m=26&xywh=-1912%2C612%2C6356%2C3040&cv=268

Grenter, Stephen 1984. Erosion of the Past. Archaeology in Clwyd, no.6, p.28-9

Gale, Fiona 1991. The Iron Age. In John Manley, Stephen Grenter and Fiona Gale (eds.) The Archaeology of Clwyd. Clwyd Archaeology Service, p.82-96

Heather and Hillforts Partnership Board 2011. Heather and Hillforts of the Clwydian Range and Llantysilio Mountains. Denbighshire County Council

Kent, Paul 1977. Hill Forts in the Moel Famau Country Park. County Planning Department, Clwyd

Lloyd Jones, Erin 2019. Connections between the hillforts of the Clwydian Range and the wider landscape. Unpublished PhD thesis, Bangor University
https://pure.bangor.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/22607372/2017_Jones_EL_PhD.pdf

Matthews, David. J. 2020. Caer Ogyrfan – hillfort of the norther border. In Tim Malim and George Nash (eds.) Old Oswestry Hillfort and Its Landscape. Ancient Past and Uncertain Future. Archaeopress, p.23-61

Wynne-Ffoulkes, William 1850. Castra Clwydiana II – Moel Fenlli. Archaeologia Cambrensis, New Series I, April 1850, p.81-89
https://datasyllwr.llgc.org.uk/journals/pdf/2989691.pdf

Wynne-Ffoulkes, William 1850. Castra Clwydiana II- Moel Gaer. Archaeologia Cambrensis, July 1850, p.174-187

Websites:

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland (by Gary Lock and Ian Ralston, 2024).
https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk

Based in Churton
Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor hillfort
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2026/08/23/a-visit-to-the-iron-age-hillfort-moel-y-gaer-in-rhosesmor/
Caer Drewyn hillfort
https://wp.me/pcZwQK-4ft
Burton Point: The small and rather puzzling Iron Age promontory fort on the Wirral
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2026/04/11/the-small-and-rather-puzzling-burton-point-promontory-hillfort-on-the-wirral/
Exploring Maiden Castle Iron Age Hillfort, Bickerton Hill (mid-Cheshire Sandstone Ridge)
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2025/12/01/exploring-maiden-castle-iron-age-hillfort-bickerton-hill-mid-cheshire-sandstone-ridge/
Beneath Chester’s Roman Amphitheatre – the Iron Age buildings and fields
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2026/06/02/beneath-chesters-roman-amphitheatre-the-iron-age-buildings-and-fields/

Clwydian Range and Dee Valley
Moel Fenlli
https://www.clwydianrangeanddeevalleyaonb.org.uk/article/moel-fenlli/
Moel Famau Country Park
https://www.clwydianrangeanddeevalleyaonb.org.uk/article/moel-famau-country-park/

Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust
Historic Landscape Characterization: The Vale of Clwyd
https://heneb.org.uk/archive/cpat/projects/longer/histland/clwyd/clwyd.htm#Themes
https://heneb.org.uk/archive/cpat/projects/longer/histland/clwyd/1038.htm

Coflein
Foel Fenlli hillfort
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/sites/96522

A lovely visit with panoramic views: the Iron Age hillfort Moel y Gaer in Rhosesmor

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View from the inner rampart over the outer rampart and beyond to the distant landscape in the east

Introduction

Rhosesmor is a small village not far from Mold, which boasts an Iron Age hillfort a short walk from the village hall car park, with stunning 360° views over the surrounding hills and across the Dee estuary and beyond.

Aerial view of Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor by Chris Musson / CPAT. Source: Internet Archaeology

It was an iffy day when I visited, weather-wise, with a lot of cloud overhead and the threat of rain, but it was possible to see for many miles all around, and is very easy to understand why this could have been a strategically valuable location. The footpath around the top of the first, inner rampart is well worn and unimpeded, and a really lovely walk. The interior and the outer of the two banks, and both ditches, are covered with gorse, which was in flower. There are paths through the gorse on the plateau, but it makes it difficult to see the line of the second, outer rampart, which in the Iron Age was never a complete circuit.

When I was an archaeology undergraduate in the 1980s my parents moved from Hertfordshire to a village not far from Chester. Whenever I returned home my favourite pastime was taking the family dog and exploring the hills in northeast Wales. That led me to the Clwydian range and Moel y Gaer Llanbedr. As a newbie to Wales, with no understanding of Welsh placenames, I had no idea that there were actually three Moel y Gaer hillforts in the area and more further afield so when I returned to university (and bearing in mind that there was no Internet in those days) I spent some time in the library assembling data about Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor, thinking it was Moel y Gaer Llanbedr, before the penny dropped. Decades later I have at last got around to visiting the the Rhosesmor hillfort, and what a super site it is, with a complete panorama of diverse views. See Visiting information at the end of the post for parking details and the route from the car park to the hillfort.

The Archaeology

The best online source of information about the hillfort is Graeme Guilbert’s page about the site on the Internet Archaeology website, part of a bigger article about the excavation of Welsh hillforts. I recommend this, because as well as details about the site, many of which I have included below, the page has some really excellent photographs of the excavations during the 1970s and reconstructions of the two different types of roundhouse.

LiDAR view of Moel y Gaer. Source: Lock, Gary and Ralston, Ian. 2024. Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. Available at https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk

Moel y Gaer translates roughly as “the bare fort,” presumably referring to the somewhat barren moorland conditions characterizing the top of many hillforts, which accounts for why there are three of them with the same name in the area. It is perched on the southern end of Halkyn mountain, c.300m (984ft) above the Dee floodplain. The visible remains include two banks, both of which follow the contours of the hill. The higher, inner bank provides a complete circuit of the hillfort, whilst the second, lower bank, divided from the inner bank by a deep ditch, never provided a complete circuit, as the LiDAR image to the left makes clear. The most interesting and informative aspects of Moel y Gaer are, however, the structures and features that were excavated in the 1970s and are no longer visible, described briefly below.

The reservoir

Ironically the most clearly identifiable feature today is a rectangular reservoir, completely enclosed and covered in grass and a good perch for admiring the views. If you sit by one of the metal inspection batches, you can hear something whirring gently below, but otherwise it is just a grassy platform with some metal-topped lids.

It is because of the reservoir that the site was excavated by Graeme Guilbert and his team in the 1970s, with the bulk of the work carried out between 1972 and 1974. Although the development of a modern structure slapped on a prehistoric site was undoubtedly controversial, it did at least give the opportunity for archaeologists to investigate 0.6 hectares (1.4 acres) of the 2.7 hectares (6.6 acres), and the results were excellent. It is rare that it is possible to cut a 15ft trench through a rampart, due to time and cost constraints, but this was done at Moel y Gaer, and the information about the interior, enabled by the excavation of such a large area, is now referenced in all discussions of hillfort interiors.

Sketch of the possible Neolithic structure and well as the worked flint scatter, both in red, shown in relation to the later Iron Age structures. Source: Britnell 1991, p.58

The archaeology of the hilltop begins in the earlier prehistoric period. The earliest of these is the Neolithic, represented by worked flint and chert, including scrapers, blades and arrowheads and associated waste products. Pottery fragments were found in shallow pits. Most importantly, a possible rectangular structure, a very rare find, consisting of a short length of fence and a series of postholes, suggests a Neolithic settlement.

Two Early Bronze Age round barrows have been identified within the later ramparts. One is on the highest part of the hill near the reservoir; the other was apparently levelled during the Iron Age occupation of the hill, and when excavated was found to include a burial chamber but no skeleton (probably due to the acidic conditions), and no accompanying artefacts. Early Bronze Age barrows are common in the area, but most were left in tact. It is a puzzle why one was retained and the other levelled.

The first phase of the hillfort itself predates the banks and ditches and may date back to the Late Bronze Age, in the 8th or 7th century BC. A set of roundhouse structures and a palisade trench carved into the stone were found, although it is not clear if the roundhouses and the palisade (an elaborate fence) were contemporary or if the settlement was initially unenclosed. It had a gap of 11m, indicating an entrance, although it remains unknown if this was the only entrance into the enclosure. As Guilbert says, the size of the gap “may seem inappropriate to a purely aggressive, or even largely defensive purpose” and he suggests that the site may have been positioned as much for its visual impact as for security purposes. In 1977 some trial trenches were opened that suggest that the palisade extended around most of the hillfort perimeter. The pre-rampart palisade is not a unique feature, and there is at least one other in the region, at Eddisbury hillfort on the mid-Cheshire Sandstone Ridge.

Phase 1 of the hillfort showing the palisade slot at left and the roundhouses, many with porches. Source: Guilbert 2018, Internet Archaeology.

Importantly in Phase 1 there were 26 roundhouses, between c.6.5m and 11.5m in diameter. All were made of an inner and an outer ring of postholes, the inner and larger ones thought to hold roof supports and the outer one to hold much lighter wall supports. All had entrances, most of which were facing east or southeast, and some of which were provided with a square porch by the addition of two posts at their entrances. Eleven had hearths at or near the centre, suggesting that those with and without hearths were used differently. Some of the structures overlapped, suggesting that they were rebuilds. A cache of pebbles, thought to be for slingshots, were found in one of the roundhouses on the edge of the rampart. Other structures were also found, consisting of twelve small oval pits as well as a series of postholes in pairs, but these may or may not belong to Phase 1.

The footpath along inner rampart, following the line of the contour around the top of the hill, marked by the line of gorse

It is not known how long a period separated Phase 1 from Phase 2. Phase 2 of the hillfort consisted of the construction of the inner rampart and ditch. The surviving bank, which made up the rampart, was up to 6m wide and nearly 2m high. At the back it sloped towards the interior but its front was provided with a “showy” revetted stonework facing that alternated with wooden posts 0.6 – 0.9m apart. A generic image of a box rampart is shown below for reference. The rampart posts were tied into a wooden framework within the bank, and the interior was divided into compartments or cells that were filled with rubble, perhaps to provide additional structural integrity and to enable easy repairs when any one part of the rampart failed. This is referred to by Barry Cunliffe as “the Moel y Gaer style” of rampart building.

J. Forde-Johnston’s illustration of box ramparts, with my annotations showing key features. Source: Forde-Johnston 1976 p.180

Another section of the inner rampart

Phase 2 of the hillfort showing the earliest rampart at left, the roundhouses, and the 4-posters. Source: Guilbert 2018, Internet Archaeology.

The enclosed space in Phase 2 was occupied by a mixture of twelve roundhouses, different from the Phase 1 structures, and around thirty four-posted structures that were largely set apart from the roundhouses, indicating a level of deliberate planning. The roundhouses in this phase, between 5.7 and 8.1m in diameter, only had a single circuit of stakeholes and no separate roof supports, indicating more lightweight structures, with or without roofs. As in the previous phase, entrances were mainly aligned to the east. The four-posters are known from other hillfort and lowland sites, but there are no indications at Moel y Gaer about how they were used. Interestingly, when the site was abandoned the timbers from many of the 4-posters were removed, presumably for re-use elsewhere. The roundhouses and the ramparts on the bank were simply abandoned, leading to the decay of both. The period of Phase 2 occupation dates to the 4th century BC.

A gorse-covered section of the outer rampart seen from the inner rampart

Phase 3 involved the repair of the inner rampart, which was widened and heightened and topped with rubble, with new breastwork added along the top. This work was radiocarbon dated to the 4th -1st century BC. Work began on the second, outer rampart, of which intermittent sections and accompanying ditch survive. Only two stretches of the bank at the east end were built to a clearly visible height, all covered in gorse, but there are places on the walk along the upper rampart where you can clearly see the height of the second rampart, which must have been impressive in places on the other side of the inner rampart’s ditch. A palisade was built on top of it, which may have been intended to look like a more substantial wood-faced revetment from the outside. Possibly during this phase, although the relationship between the components is not clear, a set of rectangular buildings were added. These had no foundations of any type, but instead sat on sill-beams that were laid on the surface of the plateau. They were provided with stone floors and were accompanied by metalled areas interpreted as yards.

The east entrance

There were thought to be at least two entrances into the hillfort (either contemporary or belonging to different periods), one at the east end that remains in use,with an inturned entrance, and one at the west end that was later blocked in, a phenomenon noted at other hillforts in the region.

Moel y Gaer is interesting in relation to other hillforts on the Clwydian Range. Although the Egyptian temple on top of Moel Famau is just visible from the interior, there was no hillfort on Moel Famau. Moel Fenlli is just visible, but most of the hillforts on the Clwydian Range were focused on the Vale of Clwyd on the other side of the range. Moel y Gaer is, by contrast, focused on opposite side of the range, with exceptional views up and down the Dee and across the Wirral towards Merseyside, as well as east towards the mid-Cheshire sandstone ridge where there are other hillforts. There would have been a direct line of sight between Moel y Gaer and Burton Point, if the latter is confirmed as a promontory fort (see my post on the subject of the latter here).

Some of the unanswered questions

Even with an excavation on the scale of the rescue work carried out at Moel y Gaer in the face of the planned reservoir there are many questions that remain unanswered.

For example, the possibility of a Neolithic settlement is of considerable importance, but it is not known if the hilltop contains any more clues about this period of occupation.

In Phase 1 the 11m (36ft) gap in the palisade is something of a puzzle if the site was intended to be defensive. Speculating, it might have been intended to give easy and hurried access for livestock, perhaps in the event of a raid or for herd management purposes, but without the vital information from animal bone it cannot be determined if animals were ever present at the site.

The orientation of Iron Age roundhouses, showing that the majority are orientated between the east and southeast. Source: Oswald 1997

Similarly, in phase 2 it is suggested that roundhouses with and without hearths may have had different purposes, but these purposes cannot be assessed due to the lack of artefacts, and plant and animal remains. In both phases 1 and 2 the roundhouse entrances faced mainly east and southeast. There has been a lot of discussion about whether this sort of orientation, which was common, represented practical considerations such as allowing light and heat into the building from the early morning and excluding westerly winds; or whether more spiritual and cosmological motivations were concerned with aligning buildings to solar events.

In phase 2 it is not known what the four-poster buildings may have been used for unless data can be obtained from unexcavated parts of the hillfort. Although it has been traditionally suggested that such postholes represent buildings raised off the ground surface on posts, and that these may have been granaries, from most sites there is very little, if any evidence in the form of plant or animal remains, or artefacts, to indicate what function they may have had.

View from the inner rampart over the outer rampart

View from the inner rampart over the outer gorse-covered rampart towards the Dee estuary

In Phase 3 it is not known why the second, outer rampart was only built in incomplete sections, although Ian Brown suggests that such sites may reflect a building strategy employing separate working gangs or family units who simply failed to complete the work by joining up the sections by the time the hillfort was abandoned. The rectangular buildings that may or may not have been contemporary with the second rampart, and both their date and function remain ambiguous.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question, common to all of the phases, is what sort of economic practices were adopted by those who occupied the hillfort. Today there is extensive livestock herding in the area, both sheep and cattle, and this may have formed the basis of subsistence in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, but there may also have been other types of agricultural and horticultural activity, or trade links may have supplied the cereal and vegetable components of diet. Nor is it known to what degree the builders of the Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor hillfort were related or in communication with the hillforts on the Clwydian Range, and if they may have shared or exchanged resources, or whether they were in conflict. In theory this was the territory in the Late Iron Age of a “tribe” known by Roman writers as the Deceangli, but whether this indicates solidarity between all communities in that territory, and over what sort of period of time, is unknown. Similarly, it is not known if there were affiliated lowland settlements in the valley below. Without evidence these and other livelihood questions remain open.

View from the ramparts out to Liverpool Bay

View to the east

Post-hillfort history

Of the post-hillfort history the earliest is the unconfirmed tradition that one of Owain Glyndŵr’s supporters, Hywel Gwynedd, set up a camp here, but was captured and beheaded in 1406. Excavations produced no signs of them. It is, however, a matter of history that in 1814 a fire-beacon was set up here during the Napoleonic Wars to take advantage of the superb views over the estuary and river.

On your way back to the car, the Victorian church of St Paul with its fantastic roof is well worth a visit.

See the National Church Trust website for information about the history of the church, but here are the first two paragraphs:

St Paul’s was built in local limestone between 1874-6 by the architect John Hill for the villagers working in the lead mining industry, which dates back to pre-Roman times. Rhosesmor grew as a distinct lead mining village in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. St Paul’s benefited from local landowners who contributed to the formation of the church. The site was given by Hugh Lupus, first Duke of Westminster (1825-1899) with foundation stone laid by Mrs J Strutt Bankes of Soughton Hall in 1874.

By 1890 necessary repairs, including the present roof beams, were undertaken by architect John Douglas of Chester. The west end Annunciation windows, by Jones and Willis were presented by the Revd W E Torr of Eastham, on the Wirral. The availability of funds grew over the next 25 years and Mr Scott Bankes, replaced the dilapidated chairs in the nave and supplied new fittings for the chancel.

Final Comments

Visiting hillforts is all about enjoying what you can see, but it is also about using excavation reports to imagine what was once there. The quiet serenity of a hilltop site with wide views, its former ramparts smoothed by centuries of erosion, is probably completely at odds with the busy lives represented by the roundhouses and four-posters, and the ongoing maintenance after the substantial ramparts were first built.

Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor is one of the most thoroughly investigated hillforts in north Wales, and it hints at many more possibilities, via geophysical survey and excavation, for understanding both this and other hillfort sites in the region, from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age.

With its panoramic views over the hills and the Dee, Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor is an absolutely marvellous place to visit.

Visiting

The hillfort is at top left. The parking is in the Rhosesmor community hall immediately off the B5123 (red arrow). The yellow arrows show the route to the hillfort. Source: Google Maps

The hillfort is at top left of the image. Parking is at the Rhosesmor community hall, marked on the map with a red arrow (What3Words ///litigate.messy.hems). There is a blue parking sign, but it is a bit hidden. From the car park the yellow arrows show the route.

It is a short walk along the lane towards the route up to the hillfort, with the churchyard of St Paul’s on your left.

At the junction head uphill along a private road. A very faded Public Footpath signpost points you in the right direction, but it is perfectly obvious. This is quite a short stretch, all uphill. It ends at the entrance to a house on the left and a metal gate on the right. Access to the hillfort is via the gate, which leads you onto the open hillside and its top. It is perhaps a 15 minute walk from the car park to the ramparts.

As you can see in many of the above photographs, the inner bank is fully accessible along a well worn footpath that goes around the full circuit of the hillfort, and their are walks through the gorse on the plateau itself. The lower bank and ditch are completely covered with gorse, and are not accessible unless you like to wrestle with very dense spiky gorse. The fully enclosed reservoir is covered in grass, and provides unobstructed views over the entire area.

St Paul’s Church has toilets and a small shop selling essentials as well as hot drinks. The church is very welcoming and well worth a visit for the beautifully crafted wooden ceiling over the apsidal chancel.

Sources

Books, papers and leaflets

Britnell, William J. 1991. The Neolithic. In John Manley, Stephen Grenter and Fiona Gale. The Archaeology of Clwyd. Clwyd County Council, p.55-64

Brown, Ian 2009. Beacons in the Landscape. The Hillforts of England and Wales. Windgather Press

Brück, Joana. The Architecture of Routine Life. In Joshua Pollard (ed.), Prehistoric Britain. Blackwell

Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (leaflet – no date). Moel y Gaer.

Cunliffe, Barry 2005 (4th edition). Iron Age Communities in Britain. Routledge

Garner Dan (and contributors) 2016. Hillforts of the Cheshire Ridge. Investigations undertaken by The Habitats and Hillforts Landscape Partnership Scheme 2009–2012. Archaeopress

Guilbert, Graeme 1975. Moel y Gaer: an area excavation on the defences. Antiquity 49, 109-117

Guilbert, G., 1977. The Northern Welsh Marches: some recent developments. In J. Collis (ed), The Iron Age in Britain — A review. University of Sheffield, p.41–50.

Guilbert, Graeme 2018. Historical Excavation and Survey of Hillforts in Wales: some critical issues. Internet Archaeology 48
https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue48/3/toc.html
Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor page: https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue48/3/box1.html

Davies, Jeffrey L. and Frances Lynch 2000. The Late Bronze Age and Iron Age. Frances Lynch, Stephen Aldhouse-Green and Jeffrey L Davies (eds.) Prehistoric Wales. Sutton Publishing, p.79-138

Oswald, A 1997. A doorway on the past: practical and mystic concerns in the orientation of roundhouse doorways. In (eds.) A. Gwilt and Colin Haselgrove. Reconstructing Iron Age Societies. Oxbow Monograph 71, p.87-95

Websites

Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland
By Gary Lock and Ian Ralston 2024
https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk

Butser Ancient Farm Archive
The Moel y Gaer House
https://www.butser.org.uk/page43.html

Heneb Historic Environment Record
Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor hillfort, Iron Age phase
https://archwilio.org.uk/her/chi3/report/page.php?watprn=CPAT100296

Walking at the magnificent Iron Age ‘Old Oswestry’ hillfort

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This post looks at the walk around the hillfort and its ramparts, with its section of Wat’s Dyke at its foot, and lovely views across the landscape. Parking details are at the end.

Old Oswestry from the southwest, via the footpath across the field from Gatacre car park

This makes a great day trip with a visit to the Whittington Castle (see Wikipedia), only 2.5km away to the east, or the market town of Oswestry just to the south (see the official Visit Oswestry site here). It is free of charge to visit at any time, with one main parking area and a small lay-by. See Visiting details at the end.

Signage from Old Oswestry. Click to expand.

Old Oswestry hillfort is a magnificent archaeological site and local landmark dating to the 4th to 7th centuries BC during the Iron Age with terrific views over the surrounding lowland landscape. Seen from above the pentagonal shape is particularly distinctive, and you notice this whilst walking, as it is one of the few hillforts at which you reach corners. It is also undulating – as you walk around the top you will notice that they path goes up and down, never at all steeply but just enough to draw attention to the varying levels. If you keep looking across the plateau you will see that this too is undulating; sometimes you can see across it but at other times you can’t. It is one of the most impressive and least-understood hillforts in the country, excavated only twice with sample trenches, with much more knowledge remaining to be discovered.

In April there are bluebells, celandines and wood anemones, and to keep the scrub down there are small herds of black sheep (Soay and Hebridean crosses) roaming the banks and ditches. On my visit this August, just a few days ago, the long-term drought had left everything incredibly parched, and the plateau grass had died off. Some of the young trees and shrubs were in fruit with red hawthorn berries, blackberries and dark purple alder berries. There had obviously been rosebay willowherb recently in flower, with its fluffy seeds catching the sun, and some gigantic thistles had recently gone over. Otherwise, it was the bracken that was winning the fight against the drought, in spite of a fine herd of attractive black sheep.

Banks and ditches at the western entrance looking north

The site of Old Oswestry is built on a hill of clay, sands, gravels and mixed boulders left behind after the retreat of the last glacier, the whole thing lying on a bed of glacial clay. You can see boulders underfoot as you walk around the perimeter of the plateau. Old Oswestry is the largest of three similar hillocks, one of which is immediately visible to the south. The hillfort was excavated in 1939 and 1940 with seven trenches cut mainly across the ramparts, followed 80 years by a small excavation of three trenches in 2021 and 2022, again across the ramparts. The interior has never been subject to excavation.

Hillfort phases. Source: English Heritage

The earliest known occupants used the hillfort during the Neolithic, and left behind two polished stone axes and a set of worked stone tools. The story of the archaeology of the Iron Age hillfort is complicated, but in essence it began with two banks that supported ramparts (defences built of stone), separated from each other by a ditch. The first pair of banks and ditches followed the natural line of the hill, only interrupted by two entrances, on the east and west sides. Over the 300 years that the hillfort remained in use, additional banks and ditches were added, in a less straight forward arrangement, causing the entrances to become corridors with banks along their sides. In total, there are two banks on the eastern side, five on the southern side, four on the south and seven on the west where a complex of hollowed out depressions were added either side of the western entrance. To date it is not known what the hollows were used for and they remain unique in Britain. There are photos of them below.

Map showing Wat’s Dyke (brown line) and Offa’s Dyke (green line). Source: Keith Ray and authors on ResearchGate

The hillfort was incorporated by Wat’s Dyke, which arrives at the hillfort’s southern corner, and departs at its northern end, using the hillfort’s presence as a component of the linear boundary that extends over a 60 km (37 mile) stretch of the Welsh border built in the 8th or 9th century AD. It begins in Maesbury, just south of Oswestry and extends all the way to Basingwerk, near Holywell, on the north Wales coast, roughly parallel to Offa’s Dyke, but much shorter. Although its purpose is currently a matter of speculation, it is thought to mark the border of Mercia in the west, and to be both a defensive and a symbolic structure, marking differences is political allegiance and administrative systems. There is only one small part of it visible at Old Oswestry, at the southwest corner, but the line of the Dyke is marked by a line of hedgerow and trees that heads north from the hillfort.

LiDAR view of Old Oswestry, with Wat’s Dyke (red arrows) and the craters and trenches (pink arrows) clearly visible. Click to enlarge. Source: Lock, Gary and Ralston, Ian. 2024. Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland: https://tinyurl.com/mputmk3d

In the LiDAR image of Old Oswestry to the right, Wat’s Dyke can be seen at the bottom left, where it meets the corner on a perpendicular on the southern side and extends from northeast corner of the hillfort, both visible as a shaded bank leading into and out of the hillfort. The builders were obviously great pragmatists, making good use of a natural barrier in the landscape!

During the First World War, the interior of the hillfort enclosure was used for military training purposes, including the digging of practice trenches and setting off mortars and other explosive devices that left small craters in the top. Marks of both the trenches and the craters are visible in some aerial photographs, and are visible in the LiDAR image right (click to expand).

The photographs are a mixture from April 2025 and August 2026, showing the difference between the well-watered spring and the long-term drought of 2026.

View from the foot of the west entrance to the west

View across the fields at the entrance to the hillfort

The west entrance towards the plateau

From the bottom of the west entrance there is a shallow slope, with wide wood-framed stone steps to avoid mud slippage, leading up to the plateau. Here, there is a walk that follows the circumference of the hillfort.

East side of the top of the hillfort. Note that this photograph was taken in April 2025; in August 2026 the plateau was completely parched, and a light yellow colour as in some of the photographs below.

The middle of the interior is fenced off for pasture most of the way round, although you can enter it at the eastern entrance, where you also get a good sense of how undulating the plateau actually is, even though it looks completely flat in aerial photographs. At this point, as with many others, you cannot see from one side of the enclosed space to the other. Walking to the highest point of the plateau from the eastern entrance, up a slight slope, gives you panoramic views.

View across the eastern entrance towards the north in August 2026

The ramparts and ditches can all be explored freely, and these give an excellent idea, even after centuries of erosion, of the scale of the construction work that made up the site. All of the rampart banks are so magnificently high that if you stand in the ditches, all you can see is the walls of the banks either side of you. It is in the ditches and on the side of banks, rather than along the plateau itself, that most of the wild flowers are to be found.

Across the top two banks and ditches to the view beyond

Optional stairways that lead across the banks and ditches from the circumference walk, showing the surviving depth of one of the ditches

The line of Wat’s Dyke marked by the hedgerow and trees, heading north from the northern edge of the hillfort

April 2025

Rosebay willowherb, August 2026

View east from the plateau

Perimeter walk around the plateau

Upper and second ramparts looking west

Walking along the top of the second rampart to the east

Walking to the west along the third rampart

The hollows at the west end are reached most easily from a black metal kissing gate on the north side (left, going up) on the slope from the western entrance. This lets onto a single track footpath that passes at the bottom of the hollows and lets you get a sense of the scale of them, which is impressive. The hollows on the other side of the footpath can also been seen, but are much smaller. A footpath actually goes across the middle of them, but they are best seen from the second (looking down) or third ramparts (looking back).

One of the ponds or cells that you can see in the aerial photograph at the top of the page

One of the ponds or cells that you can see in the illustration at the top of the page, to the left of the west entrance as you go uphill, in April 2025. This was dry in the drought conditions of August 2026, but some of the hollows still had marsh plants at their edges.

Soft-stem bulrush growing around the base of the hollows even after a drought

Returning to the car via the west entrance

The great bank at the base of the hillfort and the lesser bank below it

The Tudor “Park Hall,” which burned down in 1918. Source: Lost Heritage website

The hillfort itself is dramatic and breathtaking, but the surrounding landscape also bears unmistakeable signs of Oswestry’s heritage, whilst beneath the fields there may well be more of the area’s prehistory to uncover. The hillfort used to part of the Park Hall estate, which once had one of England’s most impressive Tudor houses at its core before it tragically burned down in 1918. The Oldport Farm immediately below the hillfort on its southeastern side dates at least to the 17th century, and perhaps earlier, and the fields retain the imprint of much earlier agricultural heritage. During the First World War both the centre of the hillfort and other places in the vicinity, was used for digging practice trenches, both a chilling and touching reminder of the realities of the war. A Prisoner of War Camp and cemetery were both established nearby. There are even glimpses of the impact of the Industrial Revolution from the top of the hillfort, with the 19th century railway and Thomas Telford’s A5.

If you are looking for a great place for a short walk that focuses on a splendidly impressive and nationally important site, this should not be missed. The walk can be extended via other footpaths, or can be combined with a visit to Oswestry itself, which is a very attractive market town. You can download the Visit Oswestry’s Heritage Trail here.

The site was owned by Lord Harlech until 1946 when he handed it over to the state, and it is now the responsibility of English Heritage.

Sketchfab 3-D interactive model of Old Oswestry Hillfort. Click here to go to the Sketchfab page.

Visiting

The route to Old Oswestry Hillfort, showing the main parking area at Gatacre car park, as well as the lay-by at the foot of the west entrance. Source: Old Oswestry Hillfort website – visiting page

The site is managed by English Heritage and it is free of charge to visit at any time, with one main parking area a five minute walk away from the hillfort, and a small lay-by. There is brown heritage signage from the A5, which takes you through a residential area to the Gatacre Playing Field car park where there is plenty of parking (What3Words ///spray.funky.tasters). There is also a layby with room for four or five cars. Both parking areas are shown on the map produced by the Old Oswestry Hillfort website.

From Gatacre Playing Field car park showing the field route and the lane route to the western entrance to the hillfort. Source: What3Words

I always park at the Gatacre car park because there is always plenty of room and it is only a five minute walk from the hillfort’s west entrance (the main access route to the hillfort). The route to the hillfort is all on the flat, along a metalled path and a small, very quiet lane.

If it hasn’t been raining, there is an even shorter route if you use the footpath (Oswald’s Way) from just beyond the car park to cut across the field – this was a gorgeous vista of sunflowers in August 2026, and would probably be even more sunflower-intensive in years that have had a bit of rainfall.

There are no facilities at the hillfort of any description, but there are plenty within Oswestry itself, only a short drive (less than two miles / 3.5km) from the site, or at Whittington Castle to the east.

The west entrance is a long, shallow slope now provided with long wood-framed steps lined with stone to protect visitors from muddy conditions, that leads up to the top. At the top, there is a footpath all around the plateau. The western and eastern entrances also offer access via gates and footpaths to the lower banks and ditches as well as the puzzling hollows that flank the west entrance. Note that sheep roam the banks and ditches, so gates must be closed and dogs must be kept on leads.

Bracken on the banks and ditches at the northwestern corner of the hillfort

Although the entire plateau walk is a nice easy stroll all the way around, well-worn by dog walkers, some of the lower ramparts are more challenging. Most of the hillfort walks along banks and ditches are very easy to access on the south and west sides, but bracken can be a perpetual problem on some of the ramparts and ditches beneath the plateau on the north and east sides of the hillfort, particularly in the summer. It seriously impedes passage, as well as potentially doing significant damage to archaeological deposits, whilst its density eliminates other species, significantly reducing biodiversity. Love it or hate it, one has to admire the tenacity of bracken under such extreme conditions. Both volunteer work and sheep are combining to reduce the impact of such invasive species, managing the site for the benefit of biodiversity, the archaeology and visitors. If you find one of the rampart or ditch walks a bit of a struggle, there are plenty of others to try.

There are plenty of well thought out information signs along the course of the west entrance as well as on the footpath around the top, providing details about the archaeology and history of the site.

The walk can be extended via other footpaths. For example the diagonal route across the field from the car park to the hillfort’s west entrance is part of Oswald’s Trail, a 12 mile / 13 km circular walk about which you can read more on the Shropshire’s Great Outdoors website. Or it can be combined with a visit to Oswestry itself, which is a very attractive market town. You can download the Visit Oswestry’s Heritage Trail here.

View from the hillfort towards Oswestry

Sunflowers on the path across the field from Gatacre Playing Fields to the western entrance of the hillfort

Artist's reconstruction of Old Oswestry Hillfort, based on the discovery of two roundhouses. By Ivan Lapper.

Artist’s reconstruction of Old Oswestry Hillfort based on the surviving earthworks and entrances and the discovery during excavations of the ephemeral remains of two roundhouses. There are no ramparts shown on top of the banks, but the illustration gives a sense of how the interior might have looked, and how the east entrance may have been configured. By Ivan Lapper. Source: English Heritage

World Elephant Day: Elephants of Chester from the 14th Century to the Present Day

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The superb Chester Cathedral Elephant

To celebrate World Elephant Day, Chester boasts splendid elephants in Upton at the zoo, as well as a medieval wooden carving in Chester Cathedral, a bronze sculpture opposite the Northgate visitor centre, and fluffy, cuddly elephant toys in the Northgate market hall.

The earliest and most venerable of our pachyderm residents is the 14th century elephant in the Chester Cathedral choir (or quire), incorporated into a bench-end in the choir. It was part of the development in around 1380 of a new choir for St Werburgh’s Abbey, when it was still a Benedictine monastery. Many of Chester Cathedral’s misericords (carved hinged choir perches) were based on those at Lincoln Cathedral, but whatever the Lincoln carvers brought with the my way of the weird and the wonderful (and there is plenty of both in the Chester and Lincoln misericords), elephants were not among the imported designs, as there are no elephants in Lincoln’s choir. Several of the bench-ends are Victorian, but this is original. The choir is generally open to the public to visit, unless it is use for a musical event, and all of the carvings are magnificent. Even the Victorian replacements are very well done.

Elephant and wyvern. early 13th century, nature and myth entangles. Royal MS12 C XIX. Source: Wikipedia

The St Werburgh’s elephant is a magnificent, if slightly peculiar creature with delicate hooves, a strangely shaped head, ears that resemble curtains and enormous eyes that give it a rather surprised expression , as though it wonders what on earth it is doing in a medieval abbey. The answer to that hypothetical question lies in the zoological and mythological company in which the elephant finds itself. The monks clearly had a good eye for the unusual, as a quick inspection of the misericords will demonstrate. The carver may have seen a picture of an elephant in a bestiary, a book of real and mythical animals that could be used as a source material for subjects like these. It is probable that there was no clear dividing line between the imaginary creatures like wyverns, unicorns and dragons, and the more exotic animals that only a handful of people in the west had seen, like our elephant. There’s an excellent description from a bestiary manuscript Brit. Lib. Harley MS. 3244, fol.39), a short excerpt from which is as follows:

British Library Harley MS 2344, fol.39. Source: Picryl

They travel in herds, fear the mouse . . . they are pregnant for two years, neither do they reproduce more than once nor have several offspring but only one. They live, however, three hundred years. Moreover, if they want to produce young they go to the eat, near Paradise, and a tree there that is called the mandrake, and the elephant goes there with his wife, who first takes from the tree and gives some to her husband. And when he eats she seduces him and at once she conceives . . . Now the elephant is terrifying to bulls, yet it fears the mouse. This is its nature, that if it should fall, it cannot rise. Moreover, it falls when it leans against a tree in order to sleep, for it has no knee joints.

Carrying a howdah on its back, the Cathedral elephant is a great favourite with visitors.

In 1898 the Barnum and Bailey Circus organized a vast parade through the town, and this too featured elephants, as well as other circus animals and performers. Chester was one of the stops for the Circus’s European tour of 1898-1902. These are the “herd elephants” but apparently they were preceded by elephants carrying howdahs.

The 1898 Barnum and Baileys circus parade through the streets of Chester. Source: Chester History Hub at the Grosvenor Museum, via a post on their X.com account

Just outside the cathedral and opposite the Visitor Centre is Janya, a small bronze elephant, just the right size for engaging eye-to-eye with a child or being patted by the many adults who do so. Northgate is a particularly eclectic part of the city, both in terms of its architecture and its various retail and leisure offerings. The original market square in front of the cathedral was home to the medieval market and the once housed the lovely 18th century Exchange building, which burned down in 1862. The addition of Janya to the edge of this space gave it a welcome lift, particularly as she was designed to be stroked and enjoyed (but not climbed). The plaque set into the pavement in front of the elephant explains that Janya means “life” in Hindi, and that “it symbolises the Zoo’s global role in wildlife conservation.” She was made in 2010 by Annette Yarrow, a gift from Chester Zoo to the city to celebrate the the “strong friendship between the Zoo and the city.” A reference is made to the Cathedral elephant, both in the text and in the small arrow pointing in the direction of the cathedral’s visitor entrance, implying an affinity between the zoo and the city’s older heritage. By showing a year-old elephant, it references the several success stories for the Zoo’s elephant conservation programme, described on the Chester Zoo website as follows:

Pioneering new practices to further improve the welfare for elephants in zoos, sanctuaries and in the wild. This includes becoming the first UK zoo to have a multi-generational family herd, successfully utilising protective contact between elephants and keepers, and spearheading vital new research on behalf of the global conservation community to find a viable vaccine for a deadly virus that affects elephants in zoos and the wild, known as EEHV.

It’s a neat way of linking the city with the zoo, reminding visitors and residents alike that the zoo is not merely a tourist attraction but a centre of conservation excellence and a terrific local resource.

The Chester Zoo’s first two elephants arrived in 1941. Chester Zoo was established in 1931 when George Mottershead bought the house (Grade 2 listed and sympathetically converted to a pub in 2018) and seven acres of land. His aim was to build the first zoo without bars. According to the Chester Zoo website, it was a family run-enterprise, and very slow to take off, but eventually became a Chester fixture and great tourist attraction. In 1934 it became a charity, shifting its emphasis from the display of animals to wildlife conservation.

Molly and Manniken with handler Khanadas. Source: Chester Zoo

Molly and Manniken with handler Khanadas. Although this page has now been taken off the Chester Zoo website, or moved to somewhere where I cannot find it, the original source of this photograph was Chester Zoo

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Charming photograph of Elephant Keeper Les Hill, September, 1977. Source: Absolut Elephant database

The elephants were Manniken and Molly. They were given a home when their owner, the proprietor of Doorley’s Tropical Revue, a travelling menagerie, was called up by the RAF for the war. Without anyone to care for them, their situation looked dire as without anyone to take them they would have had to be put down. The story came to the attention of zoo owner George Mottershead, and the pair arrived on 28 August 1941 with their young handler Khanadas, who had cared for them and remained with them at Chester Zoo. Very sadly, although they settled in well, Manniken suddenly died in November of the same year, but Molly lived on until 1955, a zoo favourite, providing rides for children. After the war, a new elephant house was built, made entirely of recycled materials from the surrounding area, including anti-tank blocks, pill-boxes and concrete slabs. A children’s radio presenter came along to open the new house, riding in on Molly, attracting 4000 visitors.

Chester Zoo elephants

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Fluffy toys (and elephants) in the Chester Zoo Shop in Northgate market

Fluffy toys (including elephants) in the Chester Zoo Shop in Northgate market

Much to my amusement, having just taken photographs of Janya before heading into the market to buy some seafood, I found myself looking at a shelf of fluffy little grey elephants. Chester Zoo has a shop in the new market.

If you have ever wondered when the first elephant arrived in Britain, there’s a nice piece by David Meadows on the Rogue Classicism blog about the purported first elephant to arrive in England, with Claudius in AD43: “First Elephant in Britain?”

Finally, there is a splendid set of collectible elephant toys shown on the Planet Diecast site.

Chester Zoo, 18th March 2025

Sources:

Barber, Richard. 1992. Bestiary. MS Bodley 64. The Boydell Press

Baxter, Ron. 1998. Bestiaries and their Users in the Middle Ages. Sutton Publishing
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340870845_Bestiaries_and_their_Users_in_the_Middle_Ages_Sutton_Publishing_1998_ISBN_0_7509_1853_5

Beal, Timothy K. 2002. Religion and Monsters. Routledge

Burne, R.V.H. 1962. The Monks of Chester. The History of St Werburgh’s Abbey. SPCK

Druce, George C. 1919. The Elephant in Medieval Legend and Art. Journal of the Royal Archaeological Institute, Vol. 76
https://bestiary.ca/etexts/druce-elephant-in-medieval-legend-and-art.pdf

Morrison, Elizabeth (ed). 2019. Book of Beasts. The Bestiary in the Medieval World. The J. Paul Getty Museum.

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Absolut Elephant database
Chester Zoo
https://www.elephant.se/location2.php?location_id=42

Atlas Obscura
Why Did Medieval Artists Give Elephants Trunks That Look Like Trumpets?
Maybe not just because they didn’t know what elephants looked like. By Sarah Laskow February 10, 2017
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/medieval-art-elephants

Bodleian Library
MS Bodley 964 (Bestiary)
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/e6ad6426-6ff5-4c33-a078-ca518b36ca49/

Chester Zoo
https://www.chesterzoo.org/

medievalists.net
Matthew Paris and Henry III’s elephant. By Richard Cassidy and Michael Clasby
www.medievalists.net/2013/09/matthew-paris-and-henry-iiis-elephant/

The Chapel of St Nicholas in Cholmondeley Castle’s gardens and park

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The Chapel of St Nicholas on the Cholmondeley Castle estate

If you visit Cholmondeley Castle Gardens be sure not to miss the chapel dedicated to St Nicholas. I was at the Castle Gardens with a friend for the Summer Plant Fair during the week, and we took in the lovely gardens and the chapel at the same time. I have posted about the gardens, with a map, on a previous post here, but at that time I was unaware of the chapel, so it was lovely to see the signs pointing visitors towards it, and to stroll along the lane for a visit.

Cholmondeley Castle, built 1801-c.1830, replacing the 1571 half-timbered Tudor building

Following the signs you will pass through the former gatehouse, and over a delicious little stone bridge before you eventually reach the chapel, around 15 minutes from the main gardens along a traffic-free lane.

The gatehouse

Looking back at the elegant bridge towards the Lodge

One of the views from the bridge

Across the parched fields on the way to the chapel

Looking across the sun-parched Capability Brown style estate on the way to the chapel, actually executed by one of the famous park designer’s followers, William Emes, who was successful in his own right

One of the ornamental gates into the chapel precinct, and the equally ornate banisters of the chapel, gently echoing the elaborate front gates leading into the castle.

The red-brick chapel with its slate roof looks typically Georgian, but according to Historic England it was originally late 15th century, was altered internally in 1655 and the exterior was rebuilt in brick in 1717. The transepts were added in 1829. Pevsner and Hubbard say that the 17th century furnishings are “the most complete of their date in Cheshire,” with the chancel screen dating to 1655, and elaborate Elizabethan-Jacobean style of wood panelling in the chancel with plenty of ornamental strapwork. The small stained glass roundels in the windows are from the Netherlands, again probably dating to the 17th century. The Cholmondeley family pew, a remarkable feature with a staircase leading up to it and surrounded on three sides by highly coloured hatchments, is at the west end of the chapel, facing to the chancel in the east, looking down over both congregation and high altar. Humility was obviously not perceived as a fundamental requirement. Box pews and ordinary pews sit mainly at floor level, with one paired set of box pews being a little above the rest but far below the level of the Cholmondeley family pew in front of which it sits. The whole thing is truly extraordinary.
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Chapel interior showing the raised family pew

Chancel roof

Chancel

Box pews

If you want to know more about the history of the house, the chapel and the family there are interpretation boards hanging on the wall to one side of the door. A shame that it hasn’t been turned into a leaflet, because a lot of people wanted to see them and it was impossible to fit everyone in behind the pews where they are hanging on hinges on the wall.

Dovecote spotted on the way back to the gardens from the chapel

The parkland was looking very dry, but although a few of the plants in the gardens were suffering from the drought, overall the garden team have done a marvellous job of maintaining the flowering borders, the rock garden and the rose gardens. The levels of water in the ornamental ponds were surprisingly high, and the water lilies and surrounding water-loving species were very fine and lush.

I was amazed that neither of us came away with any of the tempting and very reasonably priced plants for sale in the Plant Fair area along the long edge of the field acting as a car park, with a great selection including some very unusual specimens, many of which would have been very suitable for the drought conditions currently being experienced. Most visitors there were draped in every possible type of foliage, which they were taking back to their cars before visiting the gardens. It reminded me of the witches’ prophecy that “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him.” There was also a small selection of decorative garden features for sale, and of course there were several food, drink and ice cream outlets. Keep an eye out next year if you missed it this year.

Sources:

Pevsner, Nikolaus and Edward Hubbard 1971. The Buildings of Cheshire. Penguin.

Historic England
Cholmondeley Castle
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1000638
The Chapel of St Nicholas
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1138593

Historic Houses
Cholmondeley Castle Gardens
https://www.historichouses.org/house/cholmondeley-castle-gardens/visit/

St Nicholas Centre
St Nicholas Chapel
https://www.stnicholascenter.org/gazetteer/1181

The lovely Harp Inn and the chunky remains of Ness Colliery’s Denhall Quay, south Wirral

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The Harp Inn, Little Neston

One of the most mellow, blue-skied and sunny afternoons that I have enjoyed in a long time was a sublimely relaxed and chatty visit to The Harp Inn on the Dee estuary, just outside Little Neston. It is a super little pub dating to the 1700s with lovely views over the marshes towards the impressively long line of the Welsh foothills. The pub’s official opening time is 12 noon, but we arrived to find it open at 1145 because due to queues outside their doors at 12 they are currently opening at 11. Very gratifying! The beers and ciders change from time to time (just check their website), there are plenty of soft drinks on offer and the lunches that were being paraded past us as the afternoon advanced looked gorgeous. The staff are lovely, and the atmosphere is great. There are lots of tables perched on the grassland at the edge of the lush green estuary, and on a stiflingly hot day, a wonderfully warm but cooling breeze came off the Dee to make the peaceful, endless vistas a delectable place to linger, interrupted only by birdsong. The breeze was so perfect. I do love the heat, but it is lovely to be able to sit in the sunshine without dripping like a tap. Update: We went back the following week to have lunch after a visit to the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum in Birkenhead, and the food (haddock, chunky chips, tartare sauce and garden peas for one of us and an enormous ham and cheese ploughman’s with all the trimmings and more for the other) was just as good as it had looked as it was passing us on trays the previous week.

Most of the photos taken on my aged iPhone. Enlarge at your own risk!

View from The Harp

Denhall Quay

According to the pub’s website, the building has stood there since the 1750s, when it was originally built as three coal-miners’ cottages, before being converted to an inn in 1780 to serve the expanding coal-mining community at Ness. This segues nicely into the second major benefit of the pub, which is its location a stone’s throw from Denhall Quay, an intriguing and picturesque line of wall, made of massive red sandstone blocks, that stretches out into the marshland, and is clearly the remaining echo of a substantial structure. In fact, the wall is what remains of a long pier that served the Ness Colliery, built in 1839 to replace an earlier quay in the same location. The wall was much deeper than it is now, its lower tiers lying beneath 200 years of silt accumulation, but it it sufficient to give an idea of how impressive the structure originally was.

This was not the most obvious location for a quay because the river did not run past the colliery, veering towards Wales just before Little Neston, meaning that a channel had to be created to link the quay to the main river, which became known as the Colliery Gutter. It was not ideal, as vessels often had to wait for two tides to turn before being able to navigate all the way to the quay, forcing colliers to beach on the muds in the interval between tides.

Denhall Quay c.1839 showing the quay, with its distinctive shape, surrounded by subterranean tunnels. Source: Annakin-Smith “The Neston Collieries, 1759-1855” 2019, p.170, fig.10.6

There were two collieries at Ness: Ness Colliery, which opened in 1759, and Little Neston Colliery immediately to the north, which opened in 1820. Most people, myself included, would not automatically associate coal mining with the Wirral, although it is a very familiar industry from North Wales. Fortunately, Anthony Annakin-Smith wrote an excellent book on the subject in 2019, which I read shortly after its publication, and he gave a really enjoyable lecture about the collieries at the Festival of Ideas this year (July 2026). The Wirral coal seams are an extension of the Welsh ones, but although a slither of the seams can be found on the Wirral landmass itself, most of them lie under the estuary, and it was here that most of the mining took place. A whole network of tunnels was built below the estuary, and subterranean canals were added to help remove the coal in long narrow vessels called “starvationers.” Both the tunnels and the canals lead back to shafts where the coal was hoisted to the surface. It was a dangerous and sometimes tragic business. Once extracted and processed the coal was transported to ports in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain and as far away as America and even Barbados.

A “starvationer” of the sort used in the canals beneath the Dee estuary, now in the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port (my photo)

The two collieries were located either side of a border dividing land between two different family interests. The original colliery, Ness, owned by the Stanley family, handled the arrival of the new colliery very badly, and its owner, Sir Thomas Stanley, who sounds like an absolute monster of a man, pursued a course of aggression that eventually, on several occasions, erupted into blatant sabotage, including destruction of machinery, flooding of their rival’s tunnels and, on one particularly violent occasion, an attempt to use explosives to completely obliterate the opposition. The collieries were both closed between 1845 and 1855 due to silting of the estuary, but they were revived in 1875, and the last coal was worked in 1927.

It is difficult to assess just how the collieries initially impacted local people, because most of the coal miners were brought in from North Wales and Lancashire, with Wirral residents only working in minor and administrative roles. But both the collieries and the miners became part of the community, and Denhall Quay is an important reminder of the unexpected industrial and social heritage of this small corner of the Wirral.

The Harp Inn, on Quayside in Little Neston, is at the end of a residential lane, Marshlands Road, turning left along the Quayside, before it eventually becomes a track and then a footpath. There are three main parking areas, first just as you round the bend to turn left from Marshlands Road onto Quayside (What3Words ///regarding.solving.mirroring, about a two minute walk, heading in the same direction), then at the pub itself where there is parking for about 10 cars (What3Words ///when.grumbling.kicks), and finally at Denhall Quay (///bike.outcasts.tarred, about a two minute walk back to the pub).

If you are interested in finding out more about the Wirral collieries I sincerely recommend Anthony Annakin-Smith’s The Neston Collieries, 1759–1855: An Industrial Revolution in Rural Cheshire published by the University of Chester Press (a second edition was released in 2023), and also check out his website at https://www.nestoncollieries.org.

At the entrance to Denhall Quay there are two helpful information boards that are faded but still just about legible, covering the earlier and later colliery phases, and you can walk out into the marshland along well-worn paths (dry in a hot summer, but probably not as foot-friendly in the autumn and winter).

Both the pub and the quay are on the King Charles III England Coast Path, and would make a great destination if you are visiting either Ness Botanic Gardens or the RSPB reserve at Burton Mere.

Other posts on this blog re the southwest Wirral area:

The verdant Hampston’s Well, Burton village, Wirral

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I must have driven past Hampston’s Well several times without noticing it, although when I mentioned an earlier visit to the RSPB Burton Mere, a friend mentioned that there was a well somewhere in the Burton village area. I was not quite sure what to expect when I remembered it on the way to Ness Gardens, and tapped it into the SatNav. On a sunny day, the light filtered through the dense woodland leaves, creating an enchanting dappled effect.

The well is a natural spring now in a stone container with a wooden lid that is easily removed. From here it trickles elegantly down a channel into a big pool, surrounded by radiating lines of block paving. The well has been restored by the Friends of Hampston’s Well, who also maintain it. It is on the south side of Station Road, where there is parking for around two to three cars. The What3Words location is: ///professes.outsmart.deflate.

A flight of steps leads down from the road level, at the top of which there is a bench, some very faded information posters in a noticeboard display, and two prone sandstone columns with plaques containing information about the well.

According to an entry on Facebook (but otherwise unverified) a dedication document for the well in 1975 stated that the sandstone columns are cores from the sinking of another well nearby. Here are the plaques:

There is some more information on the OldWirral.net website, with some photos of how it looked before restoration.

Brunel’s magnificent “Great Eastern” arriving this day in New York from Liverpool in 1860: The Illustrated London News

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On 17th June 1860 the fabulous S.S Great Eastern left Liverpool and set sail on her maiden voyage for New York. She arrived there this day, 28th June. Her designer and architect was Isambard Kingdom Brunel whose pet name for the ship during construction was “Great Babe.”

There is a nice nod to Great Eastern on the Chester City Walls, where the length of the ship (692ft) was carved quite deeply into one of the coping stones at Kaleyard, near the pigeon coop, preceded by an engraved anchor. It is also the measurement between that point and the King Charles Tower, also known as the Phoenix Tower. You can see a photograph of it at the end of this post.

I have written previously about the Great Eastern and her relationship with the Mersey, and above is a splendid engraving from the 21st July 1860 Supplement of the Illustrated London News showing her June arrival in New York.

Great Eastern shortly before launch 1858

Great Eastern shortly before launch in 1858 by Robert Howlett. Source: Wikimedia

With a capacity for 4000 passengers, she left Liverpool on her maiden voyage with only 35 passengers and 8 company overseers, both of which were far exceeded by a crew of 418. She was equipped to run under sail or steam, via paddles or propeller, had four decks, and could carry 15,000 tons of coal. Sadly she was never given the opportunity to meet the long-distance goals of India, China and Australia intended for her by Brunel and her builders and investors and was never competitive on the busy cross-Atlantic passenger service to which she was initially confined.

The fortunes of Brunel’s astonishing S.S. Great Eastern swung between greatness and near-disaster like an enormous, record-breaking pendulum. She was all too often something of a gigantic white elephant, but she became an invaluable resource for laying cables across the Atlantic, and was always a great public attraction.

Great Eastern at Hearts Content Cable Station

Painting by Charles James Lewis of the Atlantic Telegraph Expedition landing of the cable in Hearts Content Cable Station in Newfoundland, Canada, on July 27 1866, which he witnessed. Source: PK Porthcurno

After a traumatic roller-coaster of a career, the enormous ship was sold to be broken up in 1889, the work to take place on the Mersey.

Great Eastern, beached in advance of being broken up on the Mersey in late 1888, Wirral side. Source: Liverpool Echo

Throughout her history, Great Eastern was the subject of curiosity and fascination, and people lined up to buy souvenir pieces of the ship before the breaking work began on 1st January 1889. The photograph above shows her beached on the Mersey, ready to be broken up, and she continued to challenge even after the breaking work began. Not only was it a very sad episode for posterity but also, as it turned out, for the ship breaker. The company directors had estimated that it would take 200 men to break up the ship in a year, but she was so well built that it took nearly two years, requiring the costs of ongoing labour and additional machinery, including much more substantial wrecking balls, to finish the job. Substantial profits had been anticipated from her scrap value, but she was broken up at a considerable loss. Brunel had built her to last.

One of Robert Howlett’s famous photographs of Brunel with Great Eastern in 1857 prior to launch. Source: Wikimedia

Brunel had died in 1859 whilst the ship was still undergoing sea trials and had suffered an engineering accident during which five stokers died, and although the consensus is that the emotional stress of the ship’s construction and the difficulties of her launch undoubtedly contributed to his death, he was already suffering from a debilitating kidney disease.

It is perhaps thankful that he did not live to witness this drawn-out demise of his grandly imagined, fabulously realized and much-loved “Great Babe.”

Great Eastern was such a colossal, record-breaking chunk of maritime, industrial and national heritage that I find it more than slightly difficult to forgive the universe for allowing her to be broken up.

Infographic comparing ship sizes, in chronological order from left to right. Click to expand. Source: JF Ptak Science Books.

The length of Great Eastern carved into the City walls in the 19th century. Source: Geograph. By John Turner, CC BY-SA 2.0

The watercolour of Great Eastern, shows her beached on the Wirral side of the Mersey for repairs, although the painting is very sadly not on display. It was painted three years after the illustration at the top of the post, in 1863, by William Gawin Herdman (1805-1882).

Great Eastern watercolour showing the ship on the gridiron for repairs just off the Wirral on the Mersey in 1863. By W.G. Herdman (in the collection of the Williamson Art Gallery, not currently on display). Source: Williamson Art Gallery Collection at Birkenhead.

St Boniface Collegiate Church and The Chantry House in Bunbury

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The church of St Boniface, Bunbury

The Chantry House

The Grade I listed collegiate church, established by Sir Hugh Calveley in the 14th century, is listed in the Simon Jenkins book “England’s Thousand Best Churches”, and has a very distinctive personality. I also wanted to find “The Chantry House,” having read about it in Clare Dudman’s recent article in the Chester Antiquary. It is a half-timbered Tudor period building, Grade II* listed, later the home of John Bradshaw of Stockport, born 1602, died 1659, described by Clare as “regicide and President of the first Council of the State of the British Commonwealth (1649-1651).”

Although there is a list of sources at the end as usual, particular thanks are owed to the the history of the church from the St Boniface website as a PDF here.

The collegiate Church of St Boniface

Introduction

St Boniface himself, whose birth name was Winfrith, was a late 6th-century to mid-7th century English Benedictine monk, becoming a missionary in Germany and Frisia under the authority of the pope. He became an archbishop under Gregory III before going on to introduce reforms to the Church of France.

The church is perched on the side of the small valley of the river Gowy. It sits within a neat roughly rectangular stone-built boundary wall, which is most impressive on its western side, enclosing a rambling churchyard, which flows gently downhill. The Gowy that runs at the base of the valley is a fast-moving stream at this point, which wends its way northwest before emptying into the Mersey.

As with many medieval churches in the area, there is speculation that an Anglo-Saxon building preceded St Bonficace, made of wood, on the same site; and there is evidence, in the form of fragments of decorative stonework, of a Norman church preceding the early 14th century building.

The earliest phase of the medieval St Boniface’s Church was in 1320, when the Normal church was rebuilt in the Decorated style, but a large part of the church was rebuilt in 1385-6 when Sir Hugh Calveley established the church as a chantry to ensure that the canons’ prayers would reduce his time in Purgatory. As a nobleman Sir Hugh was a knight and a warrior and, already in his 60s, he had survived not only warfare, but also the devastating famines and plagues of the 14th century.

The current Church of St Boniface was established as a collegiate church, the first one I have visited in this area. The name “college” derives from the Latin word collegium, and translates roughly as “appointed or chosen together.” In other words, it is an official community of some description, not confined as it usually is today to an educational establishment. A collegiate church sits somewhere between a parish church and a monastic establishment. Instead of a single parish priest overseeing the church and congregation, the college of canons was a Christian community, but unlike a monastery was not secluded, did not follow a specific set of rules of the sort followed by monastic communities and did not require a life-time vow of commitment to the collegiate church. Most importantly, the church was just as much a community resource as any parish church and the canons, ordained priests with specific additional roles, were involved in parish life. Collegiate churches tended to be rather better financed than the average parish church, at least when they were initially established, because they were usually founded by wealthy donors like royalty, bishops or the aristocracy, whilst others were attached to university colleges. Some of the collegiate churches were dissolved following the Reformation following Henry VIII’s appointment of himself as the head of the new Church of England.

St Boniface’s was one of a number of churches that were also established as collegiate chantries. Chantries were intended to safeguard the soul, an ongoing financial investment to ensure prayers for the souls of specific individuals for eternity, thereby reducing a soul’s time in Purgatory. The most prestigious chantries were established in monasteries, where monks ordained as priests could carry out mass on behalf of those who had set up chantries, but any individual could set up his or her own church for the purpose of chantry.

Although the overall appearance of the church is coherently gothic, a great many changes were made during its life. The main styles are earlier Decorated gothic and, dating to Sir Hugh de Calveley’s investment, later Perpendicular remodelling. The nave and aisles were remodelled in c.1490. In the 1700s upper galleries were added to the nave. The church was substantially modified during the Victorian period. The 18th century galleries were removed, restoration work included the Late Perpendicular Ridley Chapel, which was in ruinous condition and the chancel floor was tiled. None of the medieval stained glass survived in any part of the church, partly due to the nave windows being fitted with iron casements in 1840. A clerestory was added above the windows, adding more light. The oak-panelled ceiling dating to the 1950s. The present stained glass is either 19th/early 20th century or modern, although small fragments of surviving medieval glass have been incorporated where possible.
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Simplified plan of the Church of St Boniface

The exterior

The first impression of the church exterior, as you do a circuit, is that the north side of the church has a massive and costly expanse of regimented windows, which together with the clerestory fill the church with far more light than a medieval church would normally have experienced, even with stained glass in place.

Although both sides of the nave consist of eight bays, you will notice that the north and south sides are different from one another. The north side, with a much smaller concentration of graves in the churchyard, has a much bigger bank of windows than the south side, making a remarkable first impression. Above them is an unusual balustrade that is not echoed on the south side. On both sides of the church are battlements and many pinnacles (some of which have fallen and can be seen in the churchyard) and do look out for gargoyles and grotesques, because there are some good examples.

The main gateway through the boundary wall, leading up two steps towards the tower, is 18th century. The medieval west door into the tower, used today as the visitor entrance, would have been used only for ceremonial occasions. Apart from the buttresses that support it, the tower is incorporated into the body of the church itself. A small door is located on the north side was opened during baptisms, whilst the congregation would have entered via the elaborate Decorated style south porch in the churchyard, retaining its original medieval doors, effigy of St Boniface and its clear views over the valley.

The south porch

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The interior

The tower and nave

Instead of standing beyond the nave, as with most churches, the tower is incorporated within the nave, with both aisles running along its sides (now blocked off for use as storage at the west, tower end). The base of the tower sits on sandstone bedrock and dates to Sir Hugh’s rebuild, with walls nearly 2m thick.

As well as the west and south entrances, there is also a small north door without a porch, but this was used only during baptisms, and was known as “the Devil’s Door.” During the ceremony it was left open to ensure that any evil spirits that escaped the child during baptism would exit the church. The frame of the doorway is original but the door itself dates to 1630.

View down the nave towards the chancel

The tower opens into the nave, which consists of a tall central section with views to the chancel at the east. The nave is flanked by two very elegant aisles. The aisle arcades are in Perpendicular style, replacing earlier aisles in the Decorated style, and are supported on particularly slender columns, giving an additional impression of space and height.

The remarkable bank of windows, particularly on the north side, provides the nave with much more light than it would normally have experienced, all in the style of the gothic Perpendicular. As all of the windows would have contained stained glass, there would have been much less light penetrating the interior than today, and the impact must have been spectacular. A 19th century clerestory is set above the windows, adding more light. The tall nave is topped with an oak-panelled ceiling dating to the 1950s. At the join between walls and ceiling there are angels holding painted shields representing local families who donated funds to ongoing care and modification of the church. The minimal amount of supporting wall between the windows has an impact on other aspects of the interior, as there is much less wall space than usual for memorial sculptures.

Immediately on your left as you enter the nave, underneath the window, is a statue commemorating Jane Johnson who died at the age of 24. It was found buried under a yew tree in 1882. The reason for this ignominious fate was apparently because the incumbent vicar in the 1760s found the large breasts too disturbing for an ecclesiastical context. On the far east end of the nave, in an aisle on the north side (left as you walk from the the tower towards the chancel) there is some fine medieval floor tiling under a communion table, with some grave stones laid into the floor. The tiles were found elsewhere in the church and moved here to preserve them.

Above the communion table is a short row of carved medieval stone sculptures, most of which represent excellent examples of grotesques, the remains of a former reredos. Grotesques are also set into the tops of the walls, particularly in the south aisle. On the opposite side of the nave, below the organ pipes, is a faint painted medieval altarpiece showing Christ rising from the tomb, flanked by important attendants, one of whom may represent St Boniface. Both the communion table and the organ pipes are located where chapels were once located at the east ends of each aisle.

The font dates to 1663, the medieval font apparently having been damaged during the Civil War. Behind the font in the south aisle are two lovely sets of painted wooden parclose panels showing images of saints, dating to c.1420-1450.

A brass chandelier dates to 1776.

The chancel

The 1921 Fred Crossley screen

Sir Hugh de Calveley with a calf shown on his suit of armour, his head resting on a sculpted calf and a third concealed in this photograph by his arms

The large chancel has been less radically modified than the nave. The walls were raised to a new height in 1520 but the rest of the chancel remains largely unchanged since the 1380s. It was originally divided from the nave by a rood screen, but the current screen, with its delicate carvings, was designed by Fred Crossley and dates from 1921. The size of the chancel was due to its role as a chantry. According to the St Boniface church’s online history leaflet, “The chancel in Sir Hugh’s collegiate church was designed to provide room for a chantry staff of eleven – a master, a submaster, five chaplains, two chanters, and two singers” in order to pray for the souls of the king, Sir Hugh and their ancestors and families. Sir Hugh died in 1394, unmarried.

The east window, apparently moved here from another church, was in the Decorated style, dating to the 14th century, its lovely tracery described by Pevsner/Hubbard as “uncommonly fanciful” and unique in Cheshire in terms of its flowering tracery. Much of the church’s medieval stained glass survived into the 19th century but the east window was blown out during a storm in the 1700s, and this window now has modern stained glass. Finds of glass beyond the east end show that it originally depicted the Jesse tree.

Sir Hugh himself is in pride of place in the centre of the chancel, with his 7ft long effigy sitting above a chest tomb, all in expensive alabaster, with many traces of paint still surviving on the chest tomb. It is surrounded by the original spiked railings. The three calves of Sir Hugh’s family shield are present on parts of his effigy, and a lion sits at his feet. The niches of the chest tomb would have contained weeping figures, now lost. The graffiti belongs mainly to the 17th century, carved by Civil War prisoners. Whether Sir Hugh is actually buried here is unknown.

Within the altar rails at the north side of the chancel is the colourfully elaborate effigy and tomb of Sir George Beeston, restored in 1937. He was a descendant of Sir Hugh de Calveley, and served in the Royal Navy as Admiral of the Fleet under four monarchs. Opposite it, also behind the altar rails on the south side (right) are the three seats of the sedilia, where the clergy sat during services, along with a small piscina, a basin for holy water, which drained into the churchyard, all attractively ogee-headed.

Unlike most churches, where an organ was slotted into an aisle of the nave, the 1895 organ at St Boniface was installed in the chancel on the southern side, facing into the south aisle.

The Ridley Chapel

The 1527 Ridley Chantry Chapel was built by Sir Raufe Egerton, a soldier rewarded for his loyalty by Henry VIII with a village near Bunbury. The endowment was much more modest than that of Sir Raufe’s ancestor Sir Hugh, employing two chantry priests employed to pray for his own soul, and those of his family. He built a house in which the priests resided, still standing today and discussed briefly below.

The chapel sits on the south side of the chancel, accessed through a substantial stone screen via a pair of very unusual carved doors, different on the chancel and chapel sides. The doors have a unique interlaced trellis topping and, on the chancel side, linenfold carving. On the chapel side the doors have and have the monograms of Sir Raufe and his wife Mary carved into the lower sections.

The screen dividing the chancel from the chapel has, on its interior face, some Renaissance paintwork, the earliest known in the region.

Until the Civil War, Sir Raufe’s marble chest-tomb stood, like Sir Hugh’s, in the centre of the chantry chapel. The chapel remained unfinished at his death and although some work continued, according to the detailed instructions left in his will, the dissolution of the college churches and chantries in 1548 led to the abandonment of the work, and it was in a highly ruinous condition by the mid 19th century, when restoration was undertaken.

After 1548

The church’s chantry college was dissolved during Reformation in 1548 and the church became Crown property before the tithes (the income of the church) were sold by Elizabeth I.

Beeston Castle

Although efforts were made to keep Cheshire out of the Civil War (1642-1659), with the Bunbury Agreement signed to this effect, the county was nevertheless dragged into the hostilities. Royalist forces had taken up position at Chester in 1642, using it as a base to provision themselves from the Dee, which was still a working port with river access via the Dee to the Irish Sea and Liverpool Bay. Shortly afterwards, Parliamentarians established themselves at Nantwich. Beeston sat right in the middle of the two opposing bases, and the parliamentarians installed a garrison at the castle in February 1643, under the control of Captain Thomas Steele, who oversaw repairs to make the castle defensible. St Boniface’s was used by Parliamentarians who were garrisoned at Bunbury to house Royalist prisoners who had been taken in the fighting at Beeston Castle and other local battlefields.

In the 1700s galleries were added to the nave, but these were removed in the 1860s during a period of Victorian alterations, which also removed the plaster covering the walls, the wall paintings and the traditional box pews. The tiling on the floor of the chancel dates to this time.

Electric light was not introduced until 1931. Sadly in 1940 a land-mine inflicted serious damage on the church, partly because the 1840s alterations to the windows had badly undermined the structural integrity of the church.

Today the nave has a feeling of timelessness that is very difficult to pin down. This may be due to the mass of light that the main windows and the clerestory produce, combined with the lofty ceiling on slender columns; the absence of traditional blocks of pews in favour of backed benches; and the minimal amount of memorial clutter on the walls, all providing the nave with a faint and attractively unusual hint of modernity. The chancel is much more traditional, but the centrepiece provided by Sir Hugh’s effigy and chest tomb, the painted tomb of Sir George Beeston and the addition of the Ridley Chapel are all truly compelling features. The amount of paintwork in the church is unusual, and although much of it was restored in the Victorian period, it gives an excellent idea of how much more colour would have been present in a pre-Commonwealth church. This venerable church, established to provide chantry services for Sir Hugh de Calveley, is distinctive in both look and feel, outside and in, and has a lot of very unusual features to offer the visitor.

The Chantry House

The village surrounding the church is very attractive, with multiple styles of building dispersed along the lines of several lanes, one of which dips down to the Gowy and climbs steadily beyond. Most of the village’s core dates back as far as the Tudor period, with fine historic buildings from other periods, all surrounded by an interrupted ring of more modern homes.

Thomas Aldersey. Source: The Haberdashers’s Company

One of the interesting personalities in the village was Thomas Aldersey who in 1565 purchased the tithes (church income) from Elizabeth I. He was a contemporary of Sir Raufe Egerton, and as well as being a Member of Parliament, he was affiliated to the Company of Haberdashers, a powerful London Puritan guild, and appointed them as his trustees in 1590. This was significant because it gave the guild authority over the church, and their involvement lead to Bunbury becoming a centre for non-conformism and, in the 17th century, became the home of Cheshire’s first Methodist society. Even more interesting is that a census of 1640 showed that the parish housed some 112 illegal Catholics. Unsurprisingly, the two factions were often in conflict. This non-conformism lasted into the 19th century when there were two non-conformist chapels in Bunbury, the Wesleyan Trinity Chapel established in 1806, and a Primitive Methodist church on College Lane built in 1876.

John Bradshaw by George Perfect Harding. Source: Wikipedia

At the foot of the dip alongside the Gowy is The Chantry House, built by the same Raufe Egerton responsible for the Ridley Chapel, as a home for his chantry priests. It is a domestic half-timbered property dated by Historic England to roughly 1527, some 200 years after Sir Hugh Calveley had been sufficiently terrified by the prospect of Purgatory to finance a new incarnation of the church. Like many other buildings in Bunbury, The Chantry House has a rich history of its own and in 1594 was donated by Thomas Aldersey to the school’s master (the school has since been demolished). It was here that John Bradshaw is thought to have lodged as a child to attend the neighbouring school, growing up to become a jurist, judge, lawyer and politician. As a Chief Justice in Chester and North Wales, he presided over a number of witch trials. In 1649, he was made Lord President of the parliamentary commission that was established to put Charles I on trial, signed the death warrant on January 29th 1649, and subsequently held senior positions in the Commonwealth. Although he was buried in Westminster Abbey with his wife, on the reinstatement of the monarchy under Charles II they were both later disinterred, put on show, and then posthumously executed by beheading.

The Chantry House

As Clare Dudman’s article highlighted, the centuries-old line of sight between the house and the church was under threat recently, when a proposal was submitted for a new building development in the meadow that lies between Chantry House (and the River Gowy), and the slope up to the church. The planning permission was recently refused in favour of retaining the open meadow. Here’s an excerpt from the Decision Notice (Application No. 25/3509/PIP) refusing planning permission:

The river Gowy

The proposed development is located within the Open Countryside and does not meet
any of the exceptions noted for development within Open Countryside. Furthermore, the
proposal would not integrate into the rural surrounding context and would erode the
existing distinction between the settlement boundaries and the wider open countryside
which contributes to the character of Bunbury. Furthermore, the development would
impact on the important local views and vistas and would have a conspicuous
urbanising effect that would fail to respect the intrinsic rural character of the wider
landscape, which would be harmful to the verdant rural character, appearance and
qualities of Bunbury contrary to Policies PG6.

Common sense, good taste and support for the retention of rural elements within the village prevailed in the end. A footpath through the field gives good views of both The Chantry House and the church.

There is a Wikipedia page showing all the listed buildings in Bunbury.

Visiting details

There are no details of opening times for St Boniface either on the website or at the church, but it was open on both visits, and appears to have an open door policy. It is worth checking the website to ensure that you don’t accidentally arrive when a service or a church event is being held. For those using satnav, the church is on Bowe’s Gate Road and the What3Words address is ///dollar.papers.currently. There is no official car park but there is plenty of on-street parking in the immediate vicinity of the east end of the church.

If you are more organized than I was, you can download a PDF of the history of the church from the St Boniface website before you visit here. I recommend doing so because there are no pamphlets to pick up or purchase at the church to learn about its history, although on a cupboard top on the right-hand side, just before you enter the nave, you can open a copy of the book England’s Thousand Best Churches by Simon Jenkins to see the one-page summary, and next to it there is a framed sheet of A4 with a potted history of the church. Other sources are listed below.

The Chantry House is a private residence and not open to the public.

If you go for a wander around the village, do take care to stand well back for the traffic, because there are no footpaths on most of the lanes, and delivery vehicles and through-traffic tend to travel at some speed, in spite of the narrow and bendy roads.

Sources:

Books and papers

Cook, G.H. 1959. English Collegiate Churches. Phoenix House Ltd

Dudman, Clare 2026. The Chantry House and School Field, Bunbury. Chester Antiquary (newsletter of Chester Archaeological Society), 2026 issue 1
https://chesterarchaeolsoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/CHE_Antiq_26-01_V03.pdf (with links to other sources of information)

Farmer, David 2011 (5th edition). Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford University Press.

Jenkins, Simon 2000. England’s Thousand Best Churches. Penguin Books

Jeffrey, Paul 2007. The Collegiate Churches of England and Wales. Robert Hale Ltd.

Pevsner, Nikolaus and Edward Hubbard 1971. The Buildings of England: Cheshire. Penguin Books

Roffey, Simon 2007. The Medieval Chantry Chapel. An Archaeology. Studies in the History of Medieval Religion XXXIV. Boydell Press

Websites

Chester Civic Trust
February 2025 event: Chester Witches
https://chestercivictrust.org.uk/february-event-chester-witches/

Historic England
The Church of St Boniface, Bowes Gate Road, Bunbury, List Entry 1138626
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1138626
The Chantry House, Wyche Road, Bunbury, List Entry 1138635
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1138635

St Boniface Church, Bunbury
Home
https://www.stbonifacebunbury.org/
Tour of St Boniface
https://www.stbonifacebunbury.org/_files/ugd/2ae44a_06c1c7df158841a39fd31257c004ed7e.pdf
Historical Document Archive
https://www.stbonifacebunbury.org/archive-1

Wikipedia
Listed Buildings in Bunbury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listed_buildings_in_Bunbury,_Cheshire

Beneath Chester’s Roman Amphitheatre – the Iron Age buildings and fields

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Introduction

Aerial photograph of the half of the Chester amphitheatre that is visible. The rest lies beneath derelict buildings and car-parking. Image source: Environment Agency via Wikipedia

Partly as a result of the Gladiators of Britain exhibition last year and the Chester Amphitheatre – An 8000 year Story exhibition this year (closes 12 July 2026), both at Chester’s Grosvenor Museum, there has been a lot of recent interest about the development of the Chester amphitheatre. The Gladiators project focused attention on the Roman period but the current exhibition looks at 8000 years of how the chunk of land on which the amphitheatre sits was used from early prehistory onwards. Of these various periods of use, one of the most interesting is the discovery of a section of an Iron Age settlement and field management, representing a number of phases of the Middle and Late Iron Age. These phases were found, together with earlier prehistoric material, during the last of three seasons of excavation that took place between 2004 and 2006, included in volume 1 of the amphitheatre publication produced by Tony Wilmott and Dan Garner in 2018 (see Sources at end).
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The challenges of locating the Iron Age in West Cheshire

Artist’s impression of Maiden Castle on the mid-Cheshire Sandstone Ridge. Produced by the Habitats and Hillforts Project 2008-2012. Image source: Sandstone Ridge Trust

The Iron Age in West Cheshire was first recognized at hill-top sites known as hillforts in Britain, characterized by banks and ditches surrounding an internal space, but it has been amply demonstrated in other parts of the country that lowland settlements, some enclosed with a bank and ditch, formed the settlement focus of farming livelihoods. It has always been difficult to identify such lowland sites in the West Cheshire area, for reasons discussed below, although the presence of six hillforts on the mid-Cheshire Sandstone Ridge strongly implied that there must be corresponding lowland sites on the land to east and west.

Hillforts on the mid-Cheshire Sandstone Ridge. Image source: Garner 2012, p.4.

In 1982, in response to this absence of known lowland sites in the fields around the hillforts on the Sandstone Ridge, James Schoenwetter used proxy botanical data from nearby waterlogged contexts to search for evidence for agricultural activity contemporary with the hillforts. He found evidence that strongly suggested that lowland agricultural settlements must have been present in the vicinity of Peckforton Mere, near the Sandstone Ridge. However it was was not until 2001 that the nearest settlement to the mid-Cheshire sandstone ridge was found at Bruen Stapleford near Tarvin, during the laying of a Transco gas pipeline. Since then a small number of sites have been surveyed and/or excavated across West Cheshire and the Wirral, with other possible sites awaiting survey and excavation. The Iron Age levels at the Chester Amphitheatre, were revealed in 2006.

Quite apart from the urban and suburban sprawl of Chester and the Wirral on what was once rural land, finding the lowland sites in West Cheshire has been complicated by the composition of the soil in the Cheshire Basin, the nature of the archaeology itself, and the reduction of funding for research archaeology over the last few decades.

Aerial photography has been of great value for identifying sites in some parts of the country, but the moisture-retaining boulder clays deposited across the Cheshire lowlands by the last glaciation mean that the outlines of structures and enclosures, which show up in other areas as crop-marks, cannot always be seen in this region. It is only during periods of drought that crop marks are likely to put in an appearance.

VCP rim-sherd found in one of the roundhouse (Building 1) gullies at the amphitheatre, on display at the Grosvenor Museum

Field-walking (the survey of ploughed fields on foot, collecting all artefacts found) also faces serious challenges. The boulder clays of the Cheshire Plain boulder are acidic, meaning that organic materials (plants, bone and antler, foodstuff, textiles, leather etc) and metals have often disintegrated in the past and are only very rarely found today. Field-walking tends to rely on pottery and stone artefacts, and although both often survive in local conditions, by the time of the Iron Age smaller stone tools were no longer in use, with only larger stone items like querns and pounders (grain and pigment grinding objects) and anvils (for metalwork) remaining in use. It is also a problem that the Iron Age in the West Cheshire region is largely aceramic. Pottery often present at other Iron Age sites in Britain, is usually absent in this immediate area, with only a particular type known as Very Coarse Pottery (VCP), used for producing and transporting salt from the East Cheshire brine springs, consistently found in the region.

Composite image of two maps showing the distribution of Iron Age sites in northwest England and northeast Wales. Sourced from Ritchie 2018 and Nevell 2025 (click to enlarge)

Because of these challenges, individual objects found in the area are most often found by metal detectorists who report their findings to the Portable Antiquities Scheme. The last time I checked there were 43 findspots dating to the Iron Age in West Cheshire, although not all can be dated with precision.

Most of the Iron Age lowland sites discovered have been the result of developer-led watching briefs and funding for excavation and publication. This simply means that instead of excavation being guided by archaeological research projects and survey activities, sites are usually found when, for example, new buildings are erected, cables or pipelines are laid down and new quarries are opened. Archaeologists are assigned to maintain watching briefs on such projects, funded by the developer in question, in case archaeological features are identified. Watching briefs have been responsible, for example, for the Late Prehistoric discoveries at Bruen Stapleford near Tarvin (where a gas pipeline was due to be laid), Saighton Camp at Huntington (in advance of a new housing estate), and Puddington Lane sites 129 and 154 at Burton on the Wirral (where sections of an offshore power cable were being laid). A 2026 article in British Archaeology (the publication of the Council for British Archaeology) by Sarah Wolferstan states that nearly 98% of UK archaeology is now developer-funded.

Large scale evironmental and heritage conservation projects are few and far between, but in this region included the Heather and Hillforts project that first oversaw the exploration, survey and excavation of both the uplands in northeast Wales in the early 2000s, and in a later phase the mid-Cheshire Ridge between 2008 and 2011, with the archaeological work overseen by Dan Garner, resulting in two main publications made available in 2012 and 2016.

Chester Amphitheatre under excavation in 2004. Source: Wilmott and Garner 2018, fig 26, p.24 (Kindle edition)

The Chester Amphitheatre Project was a special project. Unlike the above examples, the Chester Amphitheatre was the focus of a very welcome three-year project that was initiated for research purposes. In 2000 it was deemed that the deteriorating state of the amphitheatre needed to be addressed, and English Heritage issued a call for tenders to produce a conservation plan together with costings. Discussions between English Heritage, Chester City Council and a number of specialists resulted in the Chester Amphitheatre Project in 2003. Excavations took place between 2004 and 2006, led by Tony Wilmott and Dan Garner and funded by English Heritage and Chester City Council.
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Settlement features in the West Cheshire Iron Age

The structures that make up Late Prehistoric settlement sites in Britain, enclosed and unenclosed, are usually round-houses and four-posted (or “four-poster”) buildings. In West Cheshire none have produced evidence of enclosures (banks and/or ditches) surrounding the settlements, but none of the sites has been fully excavated meaning that whether or not any of them were enclosed is currently unresolved. The remains of field systems, sealed beneath early Roman levels, are of great interest, providing clues to the agricultural activity that formed the basis of Late Prehistoric livelihoods.

Reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse on private land at the site of an excavation on the west side of the river Dee at Poulton, south of Chester. Source: Cootes et al 2020 (see Sources at end of post)

Roundhouses in the area are defined by circular gullies or ditches, sometimes single and sometimes double (concentric). The largest roundhouse in this area reach was Bruen Stapleford’s Structure 3, with a diameter of c.19m but smaller examples are more usual, with the smallest clustering around 7.5-8m, with the amphitheatre roundhouse measuring c.8.4m diameter. Gullies can either be complete, leaving a gap for one or more entrances, or interrupted. Outer gullies are often interpreted as drains or eavesdrips to collect rainwater run-off from the roof. The inner gully is often a foundation trench for posts or stakes, which will have performed the job of anchors for the walls, which may have been made of wattle-and-daub (long slender branches woven together and then coated with clay or equivalent), planks, or an alternative construction material that has so far not been observed, such as turf. Alternatively, the outer gully may hold the walling material, whilst the inner gully may hold weight-bearing posts to support the roof timbers. The interior may have additional features, such as hearths or shallow pits. The activities that took place in roundhouses are still not well understood in spite of including “house” in their names. Whilst some may well have provided accommodation for group/family members (depending on how family and social units were defined and organized), others are likely to have have been used for a number of other activities related to farming, craft and/or community activities.

Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor hillfort, phase 2, showing both roundhouses and four-posters. Image source: Graeme Guilbert 2018, Internet Archaeology Journal

Four-posted buildings are even more elusive in the West Cheshire and Wirral areas, but happily two phases of one four-poster was found at the amphitheatre, and another was as at the Chester Business Park excavation in Huntington, another lowland site. They are also represented at the upland Beeston Castle hillfort. A particularly good example outside the immediate area is Moel y Gaer Rhosesmor hillfort (phase 2) in Flintshire. these structures are often described as “possible granaries,” but this is only one possible interpretation of their role within a given site or region. They are usually quite small, and either square or rectangular around 3.5 x 3.5m or 3.0 x 3.5m on average, and although they may well have stored cereal grain, particularly where there is sufficient evidence to suggest this purpose, they could also have stored other goods such as animal hides, wool and textiles, salt, and preserved foods, and some may not have been used for storage at all. For example, Janice Kinory suggests that one possible interpretation of for four postholes is that some of them could have been hanging frames, rather than buildings, used for maturing slaughtered and/or cuts of butchered livestock. Adrian Chadwick raises the possibility that some of them could have been excarnation (exposed funeral) platforms. As with roundhouses, they may have had multiple roles and it is only by excavation of the organic and inorganic remains associated with them that the uses of these buildings will continue to be clarified and refined.
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The Iron Age beneath the Chester Amphitheatre

Because Late Bronze Age and Iron Age lowland sites are elusive, it is always exciting when a new one is discovered. The Chester amphitheatre is one of Chester’s best known landmarks, and the 2004-2006 excavations (Wilmott and Garner 2018) were expected to provide information primarily about the Roman and post-Roman uses of the site, so the 2006 discovery of Iron Age activity underlying the Roman amphitheatre, a short distance from the river Dee, provided a very welcome insight into the Chester area and environs prior to the arrival of the Roman legions. Most significantly, the Iron Age finds included not only structural evidence and a small number of artefacts, but also two distinct phases of field system, providing information about the development of field-management methodologies in the region. The source of the amphitheatre’s Iron Age data used in this post is in Part 2, Before The Amphitheatre, in the 2018 publication by Tony Wilmott and Dan Garner (see “Sources” at the end of the post). Some of the images shown on this post have also been taken from the Kindle version of the same publication. See image captions for details of all image sources.

Mesolithic stone tools and cores from the amphitheatre site, Phase 1a on display at the Grosvenor Museum’s “Chester Amphitheatre – An 8000 Year Story” exhibition, found during the Wilmott and Garner 2018 excavation

The amphitheatre site had been surveyed and excavated several times previously, beginning in the early 1930s, discussed in detail by Wilmott and Garner 2018, but this was the first of the amphitheatre excavations to produce evidence of Iron Age occupation underlying the Roman levels.

The amphitheatre site has been divided into a number of periods, phases and sub-phases, of which Period 1 represents all the prehistoric phases, of which phase 1a consists of ephemeral data from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age (not included here, but extensively described and illustrated in Wilmott and Garner 2018, providing an important contribution to the understanding of earlier prehistoric presence in the area); phases 1b and 1c, which date to the Middle Iron Age and include structural elements and evidence of ard cultivation respectively; and phase 2, which produced evidence of Late Iron Age cord-rig cultivation. Later periods, not listed here, describe the history of the Roman amphitheatre.

The phases of Period 1 (Prehistory):

Amphitheatre Period 1 (Prehistory) phases, with radiocarbon dates indication that periods 1b – 2 covered the period c.400BC to the pre-amphitheatre Roman period.

Phase 1b (Middle Iron Age, 400-200 Cal.BC)

Amphitheatre roundhouse during excavation

Part of the roundhouse under excavation. Source: Grosvenor Museum’s “Chester Amphitheatre – 8000 Years of Stories” exhibition, from the Wilmott and Garner 2018 excavation

Phase 1b includes the only Iron Age settlement features found during the excavation, consisting of a single roundhouse (Building 1) and a four-posted building that was built in three phases (Building 2).

Building 1, was defined by two concentric gullies that made up part of a curvilinear structure that would have been about 8.4m in diameter if it had been complete. The inner gully was probably a construction trench for the walls of the house. A rim-sherd of VCP was found in one of the gullies. A shallow pit was found towards the centre of the building measuring c.1m x 0.75m and 0.07m, its function unspecified. Plant remains were collected and sampled, containing very few cereal remains, representing hulled barley and a glume base of spelt wheat. Buttercup, sheep’s sorrel, and vetches and other wild species. may have been used as floor covering, animal fodder or bedding.

Chester Middle Iron Age structure (Building 1) in the Chester Amphitheatre

The Chester Amphitheatre Iron Age, part of Buildings 1 and Building 2. Image source: Wilmott and Garner 2018, fig.33 p.44 (Kindle version)

Building 2 comprised three postholes representing two sides of what the excavators interpreted as a four-posted building, erected in two phases as shown on the illustration above. It is only the second example of a lowland site with four-poster identified in the West Cheshire area (the other is at the Chester Business Park site). In Phase i of Building 2 the structure measured 3.5×3.5m. The postholes suggest that at least two of the posts were around 0.4m diameter and most of them had stone packing material to support the posts. Plant remains were found in all three of the main postholes, including remains of spelt wheat, a small amount of emmer wheat, and low amounts of barley. There were also abundant weed seeds, plenty of small grass seeds, a sloe stone and charcoal containing oak and lesser amounts of alder and hazel. Charcoal in Building 2 postholes, which is also found spread elsewhere on the site, suggests Building 2 appears to have been destroyed by fire in phase i, either deliberately (which has been proposed at, for example, the Iron Age roundhouse at Prestatyn) or accidentally. In Phase ii the four-posted building had shifted position, suggesting that phase ii was a replacement building, its footprint overlapping with the older structure. It also had three postholes, but is thought to have been rectangular, measuring c.3.5 x 4m. Postholes from phase ii (again with processing waste dominating over actual grains) contained spelt wheat, emmer wheat, grasses and charcoal dominated again by oak with smaller quantities of alder and hazel. In this phase the post packing material was so disturbed that it is suggested that the building was deliberately dismantled by the removal of the posts, something seen at other sites in Britain possibly including Prestatyn, where it was thought that the roundhouse was probably deliberately dismantled (before being set on fire).

Phase iii of Building 2 is far less easy to understand. It consists of a sub-circular cut that truncated posthole 3. It appeared to be lined with red clay, and although showed no signs of burning, a later fill was charcoal-rich, suggesting a hearth. The plant remains were dominated by the by-products of spelt wheat processing. Features that could not be connected to the structure included a pair of stake-holes and a single posthole, with another stake-hole nearby.

All the Building 1 and Building 2 levels were sealed under Period 1’s, Phase 1c, the ard-marked soil.
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**Period 1, phase 1c (Middle Iron Age)**

Amphitheatre cultivation and ard marks Phase 1c. Image source: Wilmott and Garner 2018, fig.34 p.46 (Kindle version)

Phase 1c, the lower level of cultivation at the site, represents patches of Middle Iron Age cultivation, with marks in the ground thought to have been made by an ard. An ard is a predecessor of the plough, also known as a scratch-plough, a simple tool, usually pulled by livestock, that carves a shallow line into the soil rather than turning and lifting it like the later and more sophisticated plough. The marks are associated with a number of different patches of cultivated land within the amphitheatre that post-date the Phase 1b round-house and 4-poster, and are not associated with known structures.

**Period 1, phase 2 (Late Iron Age)**

Cultivation soils and cord-rig earthworks of Period 1, Phase 2, with cut features of Phase 3

Cultivation soils and cord-rig earthworks of Period 1, Phase 2, with features of the Roman Phase 3. Image source: Wilmott and Garner 2018, fig.36, p.48 (Kindle version)

Phase 2 consists of an upper level of cultivation soils showing a distinctive cord-rig arrangement of parallel low banks and shallow furrows, providing raised rows for planting, and ditches for drainage, over an area at the north of the site some 15 x 6m in area. An east-west alignment of 11 ridges was recorded, c.0.64m apart. These undulating earthworks “are a dramatic archaeological discovery, and represent the evidence for arable cultivation immediately prior to the construction of the first amphitheatre, in the last phases of the pre-Roman period” (Wilmott and Garner 2018, p.47).

The Chester Amphitheatre cord-rig is the first to have been recorded south of Northumberland. To the southwest another type of earthwork consists of a pair of circular depressions, the function of which remains unknown. Burnt vegetation, including possible turves, may be indicative of land clearance and digging the burnt material back into the soil to be cultivated.
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The Iron Age livelihood at the Amphitheatre

The occupants of the settlement located themselves very close to the river Dee, with access to both water and an excellent route for communication and travel. One roundhouse, two phases of a four-poster and two phases of field management data do not necessarily represent a full settlement and farming system. Because the excavation was limited to the amphitheatre itself, It is possible that beyond these boundaries, either destroyed by later roads and buildings or lying beneath them, a more extensive community settlement could have existed.

Photograph of the excavation showing a section of Iron Age field system

Photograph of the excavation showing a section of Iron Age cord-rig field system ( photograph from the “Chester Amphitheatre – an 8000 year story” exhibition, from the Wilmott and Garner 2018 excavation)

Field systems, many of them enclosed, were an increasingly familiar aspect of Late Prehistoric landscape management throughout Britain. The presence of a clear chronological sequence of field management approaches is particularly helpful, suggesting improved efficiencies and the desire or the need to apply new techniques to improve output, marked by the replacement of Middle Iron Age ard-marks by Late Iron Age cord-rig earthworks. Burnt plant rhizomes and possibly turves in phase 2 may have been turned into the ground to help fertilize the field, and heat-cracked stone that found on cultivation levels, mentioned below, may also have been part of general refuse spread on fields as fertilizer.

Spelt crop. Image source: Waldkorn

The plant remains at the site include cereal grains and chaff (the inedible parts of the plant), and together with the field-working marks indicate that this was agricultural land. The best represented of the cereal remains was spelt wheat, which became increasingly popular over emmer wheat during the course of the Iron Age, perhaps due to its greater tolerance of poor, marginal soils, cold and damp conditions, its ability to do well without large amounts of fertilizer and its resistance to pests and diseases. Other types represented are emmer wheat and hulled 6-row barley in smaller amounts, as well as indeterminate remains. As well as grains, the chaff produced during processing could be used for, amongst other things, animal fodder and fuel. There is also evidence of quantities of brassiceae, (the mustard and cabbage family). Weeds suggest a broadly grassland environment, some of which may have been used for roofing, flooring and animal fodder as well as other uses. Wood found at the site, invaluable for buildings, fencing, fuel, tools, weapons, handles, containers and a variety of other objects and furnishings, mainly includes oak, alder/hazel and willow.

Red sandstone saddle quern piece. Image source: Wilmott and Garner 2018, fig.42, p.63 (Kindle version)

A broken red sandstone fragment of Middle Iron Age saddle quern is a nice find (shown above), also relating to agricultural activities. It was found in a post-hole in phase 1b, with its grinding surface worn to a characteristic shallow dish-shape. Similar fragments have been found at other sites in the region, with a whole example found at Beeston Castle hillfort. Querns were traditionally used for grinding cereal grain and seeds, but could also be employed for working pigments into powder. As suggested below for the VCP, it is possible that fragments of tools and equipment were inserted into structural features as tokens of some sort. A quern fragment from the Chester Business Park site was found, for example, in what has been interpreted as a former Iron Age well.

The farming year: a reconstruction based on evidence from settlements at Iron Age Danebury (Hampshire) and region. Source: Cunliffe 2005, p.419, fig.16.5. Click to enlarge.

Even though domesticated animal remains have not been found at the amphitheatre from prehistoric phases (although they are plentiful in the Roman phases), they would have been necessary to provide fertilizer for the crops, and evidence at other sites in the region have usually been seen as indicative of a mixed cultivation and livestock herding strategy. At Poulton near Rossett (30km south of Chester) for example, where preservation has been much better than any other Late Prehistoric sites in the area, the trifecta of cattle, sheep/goat and pig is indicated by the animal bones, which could have been employed not only for meat and fertilizer and, in the case for cattle and sheep/goat for dairy products, but also for hides for tanning and sheep’s wool for textiles. Sheep and goat are very difficult to distinguish archaeologically, but both would have been viable. A dog burial at Poulton suggests that at least that particular animal had value in everyday life.

Chester Amphitheatre VCP sherd. A particularly nice piece with a decorated rim. No complete VCP vessel has been found in Britain, but sufficient sherds have been found to show that it has a relatively narrow base and a flaring rim. Displayed at the “Chester Amphitheatre – An 8000 Year Story” exhibition

Pottery was generally not found in West Cheshire and Wirral sites from the Iron Age, although it is found in Late Bronze Age levels, and has been found north of the Mersey. The exception to this is Cheshire Stony VCP, Very Coarse Pottery, which is found in varying quantities in the area. A particularly nice single piece of VCP rim sherd, with “pie-crust” decoration and 71 body sherds, were found at the amphitheatre, with the rim sherd shown above found in the gully of Building 1. VCP was used in the region for transporting salt, and may be indicative that the people at the amphitheatre settlement were importing salt from the salt brine springs in the Middlewich area. In her 2012 study of VCP Janice Kinory, building on the work of Elaine Morris, suggests that sometimes both single and more numerous sherds deposited in post-holes or gullies could have had a symbolic function, indicating the importance of salt itself, the value of social connections with salt producers, or the importance of the pottery itself to families and/or communities. The piece of VCP with “pie crust” decoration along the rim is similar to an example found at Poulton in Structure 2.

Corroded spearhead. On display at the “Chester Amphitheatre. An 8000 Year Story” exhibition at the Grosvenor Museum

The single, highly corroded iron spearhead is sadly the only metalwork to be found in Period 1, and there is no evidence to suggest that any metalworking took place. It was originally leaf-shaped, an elegant design that was common in the early Roman period as well, but this spear-head was found securely stratified in phase 1c in the lower of the two cultivation levels.

Fired clay, which is often found at Iron Age sites, was found in small quantities, of two locally available clay types, but its purpose at the amphitheatre is unknown.

Heat-shattered stone is a feature common on the local sites, and the amphitheatre produced 56kg of it from prehistoric levels, mainly local sandstone. Some dates from a Phase 1a (early prehistory) pit, but the main concentrations were in the cultivation areas during phases 1c and 2. At other sites in the area it is generally found within settlement structure features, but that may well be a reflection of the fact that only at Saighton Camp at Huntington has an excavation of a contemporary field system taken place in the West Cheshire area. The function of heat-shattered (or cracked / affected) stone has been much debated, with a number of plausible suggestions, including use for heating up or boiling water for various activities including tenderizing meat and cooking. Their presence on cultivated levels may suggest that, as with fields in other regions, they could have been spread on fields along with other refuse as fertilizer.
xxx

Final Comments

Excavations exploring the amphitheatre environs in the Grosvenor Park are ongoing. Image Source: CAER blog 2019

As with most excavated sites dating to Late Prehistory in the West Cheshire and Wirral areas, the amphitheatre has added more invaluable data to the slowly accumulating knowledge regarding the period in this region.

Although most archaeological and historical evidence in Chester is from Roman and medieval periods, the presence of Iron Age predecessors in the city suggesting that this may have been a farming locale before the arrival of the Romans, is an exciting find. The site was used both during the Middle and Late Iron Age periods, a period of up to 400 years, during which field management techniques improved.

There is always the possibility that as parts of Chester’s built environment are replaced with new planning developments, such as the upcoming Northgate 2 housing project, other Iron Age remains will be found beneath Roman levels. The ongoing excavations in Grosvenor Park, to the east of the amphitheatre may eventually reach the lower levels contemporary with the amphitheatre finds. With more excavated sites within the region there is also the hope that it will be possible to assemble sufficient data to characterize the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age periods in West Cheshire and the Wirral, and to differentiate more fully between this and other regions in the Northwest and further afield.

Sources

Books and papers

Blockley, Kevin 1989. Prestatyn 1984-5. An Iron Age Farmstead and Romano-British Industrial Settlement in North Wales. BAR British Series 210.

Brück, Joanna 2008. Chapter 11. The Architecture of Routine Life. In Joshua Pollard (ed.) Prehistoric Britain. Blackwell Publishing, p.248-267

Chadwick, Adrian M. 2009. The Iron Age and Romano-British Periods in West Yorkshire. Research Agenda. West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service.
https://www.wyjs.org.uk/media/1271/iron-age-and-roman.pdf

Collens, Jill 1999. Flying on the Edge: Aerial Photography and Settlement Patterns in Cheshire and Merseyside. In Mike Nevell 1999 (ed.) Living on the Edge of Empire. Archaeology North West, Volume 3 (Issue 13 for 1998).
https://www.academia.edu/14506084/Living_on_the_Edge_of_Empire_Models_Methodology_and_Marginality_Late_Prehistoric_and_Romano_British_Rural_Settlement_in_North_West_England
Or
https://www.castleshawarchaeology.co.uk/documents/anw13-living-on-the-edge-1999-ebook.pdf

Cootes, Kevin; Rea Carlin, Janet Axworthy, Matt Thomas, Roxanne Guildford, and David Jordan 2020. Tales of the unexpected: Uncovering an Illuminating Iron Age Settlement at Poulton. Current Archaeology 366, September 2020, p.18-25
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351840056_Uncovering_an_illuminating_Iron_Age_settlement_at_Poulton

Cootes, Kevin; Janet Axworthy, David Jordan, Matt Thomas and Rea Carlin, 2021a. Poulton Cheshire: The excavation of a lowland Iron Age settlement. Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, vol.91, 2021, p.103-178
https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/25824/1/JCAS_ns_091_Cootes_IA_Poulton_Offprint.pdf
or
https://files.core.ac.uk/download/pdf/648373506.pdf

Cunliffe, Barry 2005 (4th edition). Iron Age Communities in Britain. Routledge

Fowler, P.J. 1981, 1983 (2^nd edition). The Farming of Prehistoric Britain. Cambridge University Press

Garner, D. (and contributors) 2012. Hillforts of the Cheshire Sandstone Ridge. Habitats and Hillforts Landscape Partnership Scheme. Cheshire West and Chester Council.
https://www.sandstoneridge.org.uk/lib/file-234636.pdf

Garner D. (and contributors) 2016. Hillforts of the Cheshire Ridge. Investigations undertaken by The Habitats and Hillforts Landscape Partnership Scheme 2009–2012. Archaeopress
Abridged version available online, minus appendices (there is no index in either print or online versions):
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Marshall14/publication/313797404_Hillforts_of_the_Cheshire_Ridge_Investigations_undertaken_by_The_Habitats_and_Hillforts_Landscape_Partnership_Scheme_2009-2012/links/58a6860aa6fdcc0e078652a7/Hillforts-of-the-Cheshire-Ridge-Investigations-undertaken-by-The-Habitats-and-Hillforts-Landscape-Partnership-Scheme-2009-2012.pdf?__cf_chl_tk=hzbN0_un1j_np6Me4Z0bWxtROgI9juclGR.5XFzS5iY-1764184426-1.0.1.1-RsTsNKNPcI.Zt7JSR8rdabCJKMfRvmSXkjpGJZHx31c

Garner, Dan 2024. Chester Business Park 2003: A summary of the excavation of a late prehistoric and Roman rural site. Journal of Chester Archaeological Society 94, p.63

Guilbert, Graeme 2018. Historical Excavation and Survey of Hillforts in Wales: some critical issues. Internet Archaeology Journal 48
https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue48/3/index.html
https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue48/3/box1.html

Johnston, Robert 2008. Chapter 12. Later Prehistoric Landscapes and Inhabitation. In Joshua Pollard (ed.) Prehistoric Britain. Blackwell Publishing, p.268-287

Kinory, Janice 2012. Salt Production, Distribution and Use in the British Iron Age. BAR British Series 559.

Morris, Elaine L. 1983. Salt and ceramic exchange in Western Britain during the first Millennium B.C. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/437245/1/Morris.pdf

Mytum, Harold and James Meek 2020. Experimental archaeology and roundhouse excavated signatures: the investigation of two reconstructed Iron Age buildings at Castell Henllys, Wales. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339595363_Experimental_archaeology_and_roundhouse_excavated_signatures_the_investigation_of_two_reconstructed_Iron_Age_buildings_at_Castell_Henllys_Wales

Nevell, Mike 1994. Late prehistory pottery types from the Mersey Basin. In Peter Carrington (ed.) From Flints to Flower Pots. Current Research in the Dee-Mersey Region. Chester City Council, p.33-42.

Nevell, Mike 2025. Northwest Regional Research Framework: Later Prehistory
https://researchframeworks.org/nwrf/resource-assessments/later-prehistory/

Ritchie, Matt 2018. A Brief Introduction to Iron Age Settlement in Wales. Internet Archaeology 48. https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue48/2/1.html

Schoenwetter, James 1982. Environmental Archaeology of the Peckforton Hills. Cheshire Archaeological Bulletin, no.8, 1982, p.10-12

Schoenwetter, James 1983. Environmental Archaeology of the Peckforton Hills.
https://core.tdar.org/document/6256/environmental-archaeology-of-the-peckfo
rton-hills

Wilmott, Tony and Dan Garner 2018. The Roman Amphitheatre of Chester. Volume 1, The Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology. Oxbow [available on Kindle, although not all of the tables of data are fully legible – page numbers cited in the text refer to the Kindle version]

Wolferstan, Sarah 2026. Oral and performance storytelling for archaeological engagement and research. British Archaeology, July – August 2026, p.51

Wood, P. N. and D.G. Griffiths 2022. Excavations at Chester. Roman land division and probable villa in the hinterland of Deva. Excavation at Saighton Army Camp, Huntington. Archaeopress Roman Archaeology 93
https://www.academia.edu/121134097/Excavations_at_Chester_Roman_land_division_and_a_probable_villa_in_the_hinterland_of_Deva_Excavation_at_Saighton_Army_Camp_Huntington_Chester
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Websites

Based In Churton
Chester Amphitheatre – An 8000 year story: Exhibition at the Grosvenor Museum
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2026/05/21/chester-amphitheatre-the-grosvenor-museum-exhibition-and-the-university-of-chesters-upcoming-vr-experience/
The small and rather puzzling Burton Point promontory fort on the Wirral
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2026/04/11/the-small-and-rather-puzzling-burton-point-promontory-hillfort-on-the-wirral/
Exploring Maiden Castle Iron Age Hillfort, Bickerton Hill (mid-Cheshire Sandstone Ridge)
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2025/12/01/exploring-maiden-castle-iron-age-hillfort-bickerton-hill-mid-cheshire-sandstone-ridge/
The three official first days of spring: astronomical, meteorological and phenological
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2026/03/20/the-three-first-days-of-spring-astronomical-meteorological-and-phenological/

Denbighshire Countryside Services
Heather and Hillforts of the Clwydian Range and Llantysillio Mountains
https://www.denbighshirecountryside.org.uk/files/13491026-2854.Heather%26Hillforts_PT_72.pdf

Heather and Hillforts Landscape Project
[N.B. – most of the document links are broken]
https://heatherandhillforts.co.uk/index.php/en/about/about-the-project

Historic England Introductions to Heritage Assets October 2018
Field Systems
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/iha-field-systems/heag204-field-systems/
Hillforts
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/iha-hillforts/heag206-hillforts/

Visiting

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Introduction

The Archaeology

Some of the unanswered questions

Post-hillfort history

Final Comments

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The collegiate Church of St Boniface

Introduction

The exterior

x The interior

The tower and nave

The chancel

The Ridley Chapel

After 1548

The Chantry House

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Introduction

The challenges of locating the Iron Age in West Cheshire

Settlement features in the West Cheshire Iron Age

The Iron Age beneath the Chester Amphitheatre

Phase 1b (Middle Iron Age, 400-200 Cal.BC)

Period 1, phase 1c (Middle Iron Age)

Period 1, phase 2 (Late Iron Age)

The Iron Age livelihood at the Amphitheatre

Final Comments

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x
The interior

**Period 1, phase 1c (Middle Iron Age)**

**Period 1, phase 2 (Late Iron Age)**