Oakmere Hill Fort
| Oakmere Hill Fort | |
| Cheshire | |
|---|---|
| Type: | Hill fort |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SJ576678 |
| Location: | 53°12’22"N, 2°38’8"W |
| History | |
| Built Iron Age | |
| Information | |
Oakmere Hill Fort is an Iron Age hill fort, one of many large fortified settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age, but one of few in Cheshire. It is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Despite being a low-lying site, Oakmere is still considered a hill fort.[1]
Location and layout
Cheshire has two groups of hill forts in the county, each with three members (Maiden Castle is on its own in the south); Oakmere Hill Fort is in the southern group with Eddisbury Hill Fort and Kelsborrow Castle.
In common with all of the hill forts in Cheshire, Oakmere sits on part of the central ridge that runs north–south through the county.[2] A low-lying site, Oakmere hill fort is on a triangular area of land projecting into a mere, also called Oakmere.[3]
Today, the waters of the mere are ten feet below the defences at the south-western end of the site, with a 35 feet gap between the edge of the mere and the defences; however when the hill fort was built the water-level would have been higher and closer to the scarp, offering the site natural defences. Ramparts were thrown up around the south-west and north sides of the site, creating an arc, and a ditch was created in front of the rampart. The bank survives to a height of 6 feet and, at its deepest point, the ditch is now 6 feet deep although it was originally 10 feet deep; the distance between the inner edge of the bank and the outer edge of the ditch is 100 feet.[4] The depth of the ditch is not uniform, indicating that either the hill fort was unfinished or perhaps bearing testament to an attempt by the inhabitants of Oakmere hill fort to re-excavate and deepen the ditch.[3] The entrance to the site was in the southern end of the defences and is similar to the entrances of Bradley, Helsby, and Kelsborrow hill forts.[5]
History
In 1960, Oakmere hill fort was excavated by archaeologist James Forde-Johnston; the excavation focused on the site's southern defences and showed that the ditch was 50 feet wide at its zenith and originally ten feet deep in places. The site has been disturbed and there are two modern breaks in the defences.[5] The structure was made a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 1995, giving Oakmere protection against unauthorised change.
References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1013291: Oakmere promontory fort on the east bank of Oakmere (Scheduled ancient monument entry)
- ↑ Forde-Johnston (1962), p. 23
- ↑ Jump up to: 3.0 3.1 Forde-Johnston (1962), pp. 21–22.
- ↑ Forde-Johnston (1962), p. 21
- ↑ Jump up to: 5.0 5.1 Forde-Johnston (1962), p. 22.
- Forde-Johnston, James (1962), "The Iron Age Hillforts of Lancashire and Cheshire", Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 72: 9–46
- Payne, Andrew; Corney, Mark; Cunliffe, Barry (2007), The Wessex Hillforts Project: Extensive Survey of Hillfort Interiors in Central Southern England, English Heritage, ISBN 978-1-873592-85-4, http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.10744
- Varley, William Jones (1936), "Recent investigations into the origins of Cheshire hill-forts", Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 51: 51–59