Grovely Castle is the site of an
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
univallate hill fort
A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...
in the parish of
Steeple Langford
Steeple Langford is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, northwest of Wilton. It has also been called Great Langford or Langford Magna. The village lies on the north bank of the River Wylye, and is bypassed to the nor ...
, in
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershir ...
. The remaining ramparts stand approximately high, with deep ditches, although ploughing has damaged the earthworks in some parts of the site. Excavations have uncovered the remains of five human skeletons within the ramparts. Entrances are in the south-west and north-east corners of the hillfort. A circular enclosure of is evident in aerial photographs of the hillfort interior. There is also a later bank and ditch which runs through the hill-fort from south-west to north-east, and is probably part of an extensive surrounding
Celtic field system.
Location
The site is at , to the south of the village of
Little Langford. The site has a summit of AOD. Nearby to the east lies the Iron Age site of
Ebsbury, and to the south, the largest forest in Wiltshire,
Grovely Wood
Grovely Wood is one of the largest woodlands in southern Wiltshire, England. It stands on a chalk ridge above the River Wylye in Barford St Martin parish, to the south-west of the village of Great Wishford, within the Cranborne Chase and Wes ...
.
See also
*
List of places in Wiltshire
*
List of hill forts in England
See also
*List of hill forts in Scotland
*List of hill forts in Wales
*Iron Age, British Iron Age, prehistory
References
;Bibliography
*
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
* A crowd-sourced project to map the hillforts of Britain a ...
*
List of hill forts in Scotland
*
List of hill forts in Wales
References
{{Iron Age hillforts in England
Iron Age sites in England
Buildings and structures in Wiltshire
Hill forts in Wiltshire
Archaeological sites in Wiltshire
Scheduled monuments in Wiltshire