Iron Age Sites

Here are some Iron Age sites from around 2200 years ago!

Danebury, Hampshire

The most completely excavated hill fort in Britain, built about 2,500 years ago. It had 2 banks and ditches. The inner bank was 18 metres wide and 5 metres high. The fort had a large number of grain storage pits and granaries, and round houses. The gateway was burned down around 2,100, and the fort was left to just one family as a farmstead.

Gurness, Orkney

One of the best surviving brochs, Gurness is a round tower with very thick but hollow walls. Around the tower were small buildings clustered together inside an outer wall. The hollow walls of the broch were not well built. They collapsed and had to be filled in, and extra thickening placed around the collapsed wall to keep it up.

Hengistbury Head, Dorset

A headland jutting out into the sea, was defended by banks and ditches to become a harbour for ships. Wine and luxury goods were imported from Gaul, and a lot of coins have been found at the site.

Maiden Castle, Dorset

The largest hillfort in Britain (the size of about 50 football pitches). It has 3 lines of banks up to 6 metres high and ditches, and was built 2,300 years ago. It has a large and very complex defensive gateway. There was a cemetery of warriors killed during fighting inside the fort.

Snettisham, Norfolk

A series of pits dug into the ground have been found in a field in Norfolk. These pits contained some of the finest metalwork ever found in Britain. There were 75 whole torcs, 100 broken fragments of torcs, 234 coins, and many metal ingots. The coins date to around 2,080 years ago. In all there was 30 kg of metal, most of it gold and silver. Were they pit in pits for storage, or as part of religious ritual? We don’t know.

Welwyn, Hertfordshire

One of the wealthiest burials of the Iron Age, was of a man cremated and placed in a grave with very rich grave goods. He had wine jars, well made pots, bronze drinking and serving vessels, wooden buckets and glass gaming counters. A silver cup, flagon and the wine jars were imported from the continent. He was buried some time between Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain and the Roman conquest, about 2,000 years ago.

Y Breiddin, Powys

One of the largest hillforts in Wales. Y Breiddin has two lines of a stone walls joined together to form a 70 metre long entrance funnel. Inside the walls 14 round houses have been excavated. They were up to 7 metres across with entrances facing east, so that the morning sun would light them up inside. There were also 50 square granaries for storing wheat. The people living there also built an artificial cistern for collecting water.