Maiden Castle, Yorkshire
Maiden Castle is an earthwork, apparently a hill fort, in Swaledale, within the North Riding of Yorkshire. It is found up the south slopes of the dale west of Grinton at SE02189808.
The site dates from the Iron Age. It is listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.[1]
The name Maiden Castle is not unique to the site and occurs in several other places in Britain, most famously the vast fortification of that name in Dorset and is suggested to mean a "fortification that looks impregnable" or one that has never been taken in battle.[2]
Layout and dating
Swaledale's Maiden Castle is nothing like the scale of its Dorset namesake. The site measures 120 yards by 100 yards, covering about 2 acres, and is pear-shaped. An avenue leading to the entrance of the settlement is a unique feature. Maiden Castle has been described as a banjo enclosure due to its shape, however this description has been disputed.[1] If it is a banjo enclosure, it would be one of just two in Yorkshire, the other being Fremington Dykes.[1]
The only dating evidence recovered from Maiden Castle is the a "post-and-panel building" which is typologically similar to a structure discovered in Healaugh that has been dated to the late Iron Age or Roman periods.[1]
References
- Mills, A.D. (1977), The Place-names of Dorset: Part I the Isle of Purbeck, the Hundreds of Rowbarrow, Hasler, Winfrith, Culliford Tree, Bere Regis, Barrow, Puddletown, St George, 52, English Place-name Society, p. 377, ISBN 0-904889-02-5