South Barrule Bronze Age Hillfort
Period: Bronze Age
NGR Easting: 225800
NGR Northing: 475900
Description: Bronze Age defended settlement. Site & Monument Type: hillfort Category: National Monuments Record: Statutory Ancient Monuments Site ID number: 0116.20
The summit is crowned by an irregular oval enclosure measuring approximately 130m E-W and 100m N-S, defined by an inner rampart of earth, turf and stone.
Within the rampart are the remains of more than 70 roundhouses. It is not clear if all were contemporary. Some share walls with their neighbours, suggesting the grouping together of the dwellings, stores, workshops and animal houses of family or kin.
Excavation of three roundhouses showed that the walls were constructed from turf and stone. Doorways faced east, the sunken floors were roughly paved using local slate, and a central hearth in one provided a radiocarbon date of around 500 BC. Pottery from the roundhouses has also been dated to the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age.
All of the buildings appear to respect the rampart, implying that this was built first.
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