CASTLE CRAG

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DESCRIPTION

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Earthwork remains of an Iron Age slight univallate hillfort. The hillfort is oval, 46m x 22m. Part excavated in the 1920's.

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(NY 46921277) Camp (NR) (1)

Castle Crag is a headland, precipitous on 3 sides and on the 4th SW side defended by 2 deep ditches and a great rampart of stones. The entrance is on the NW, up a ledge of rock and easily defensible. Excavations in 1922 found floors of level clay with charcoal trodden in inside the rampart, but no pottery or other remains. On the N side was found a parapet rampart, constructed on the inside of tightly laid flat stones, built to a perpendicular height of 10 ft from the under edge of the brow of the precipice, using the natural outcrops. No traces of internal buildings were found. (2)

Now no sign of rampart on N and NE. There is a wide platform of rock between the 2 ditches and towards the S end of the SW side of this is the suggestion of an entrance cut in the rock, while on top are some roughly circular "sinkings" and cuttings suggesting that this rock rampart was itself possibly occupied as a sort of outer enclosure. (3)

Description correct. A well-preserved fort. DAP 72/343/053. (4)

NY 469128. Iron Age hill fort with stone rampart and rock-cut ditch at Castle Crag, Mardale covers 0.16 acres. (5)

(NY 46921277) Fort (NR) (6)

NY 469128. Castle Crag, Mardale, scheduled. (7)

NY 46901274 Castle Crag slight univallate hillfort. An oval-shaped internal enclosure measuring approximately 46m by 22m that is protected on its south-west side by a rampart of stones up to 2m wide and 1m high. The precipitous slopes on the other sides preclude the need for ramparts there. There is an entrance at the south-west corner of the enclosure leading up to a narrow ledge of rock. Within the enclosure are three artifically levelled areas - two circular and one irregular. Outside the stone rampart is a rock-cut ditch 4m wide and up to 3m deep and beyond this a second rock-cut ditch 10m wide and 2-3m deep. Between the two ditches a rocky knoll has been used as an outer enclosure and contains more artificially levelled areas. Outside the outer ditch is a rectangular artificially levelled area measuring c19m by 15m which enhances a terrace in the adjacent hillside. Excavation in the early 1920s uncovered a parapet rampart on the north side of the internal enclosure; clay floors, charcoal and circular pits were also found; scheduled. (8)

Listed, possibly a partial ringwork. (9)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1956

( 2) Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society

23, 1923 Page(s)285-6

( 3) Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England 1936 An inventory of the historical monuments in Westmorland

Page(s)31-2

( 4) Field Investigators Comments

F1 RE 19-APR-73

( 5) by A J Challis and D W Harding 1975 Later prehistory from the Trent to the Tyne

BAR British series1 (1974) - 20 (ii) Page(s)46

( 6) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 1:10000 1977

( 7) General reference

DOE (IAM) Anc Mons Eng 1 1978 p12

( 8) General reference

English Heritage SAM Amendment 16.2.93

(9) Denis R Perriam and John Robinson 1998 The medieval fortified buildings of Cumbria : an illustrated gazetteer and research guide

Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society extra series vol.29 Page(s)271

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