Warden Hill hillfort. Copyright Reserved: Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle upon Tyne.

[NY 9040 6786] Camp. (1)

This is a small, multivallate hill fort commandingly sited on Warden Hill. Hogg (3) lists it under 'native sites'. Surveyed at 1/2500. Ball (2) shows several hut circles within and alongside the fort, but they are no more than the results of surface quarrying. MacLauchlan (4) reports the remains of a tumulus on the highest point, but there is no trace of this. The entrance, slightly inturned, is on the west: a gap to the east has been caused by quarrying. According to Mackenzie (5) several querns have been found within the fort. Air photos (6) show a small sub-rectangular site overlying the north west quadrant of the fort (see NY 96 NW 10).

Hill Fort. (7)

Survey (6 inch) revised. (8)

NY 904678. Warden Hill Iron Age bivallate fort of 0.8 acres, is now well denuded and the inner rampart only visible in places as a robber trench. A Romano-British settlement may have overlain the defences on the east side but there has been later quarrying in this area. (9)

Listed under 'Hill Forts' by Challis and Harding. (10)

Pre-Roman hillfort overlain at its right-hand side by a smaller enclosed stone-built native settlement of the Roman period. Excavation may reveal the presence of an earlier palisaded site under the hillfort; evidence from analogous sites. (11)

Multivallate hillfort of 0.8 acre, at Warden Hill NY 904678, at 593ft OD. (12)

Aerial photographs taken of Warden Hill in January 1993 show a continuation of earthworks along the ridge west of the hillfort in a linear/square arrangement. Not identified. (13)

Linear earthworks, like terracing, visible on aerial photographs by S Beckensall. Quarrying has obscured relationship between these earthworks and the hillfort. Possibly relate to quarrying or could be part of a field system. (14)

NY 9041 6786. Hillfort on Warden Hill 1km NW of High Warden.
Scheduled RSM No 20926. The roughly circular enclosure measures 85m E-W by 63n N-S within three ramparts and a ditch. The ramparts have been spread and give the impression of being terraced into the hillside; the two outer ramparts, which are 0.4m and 1.5m high, are only 1.5m apart and were originally separated by a ditch which has become obscured by the spreading ramparts. The more substantial inner rampart measures 6m across and has a maximum height of 2m. Where the matrix of the rampart is clear of turf, it is composed of large facing stones infilled with smaller stones and earth. An original, slightly inturned, entrance can clearly be seen in the W side of the fort. There are no visible traces of circular houses within the hillfort; some have been damaged and obscured by surface quarrying. Aerial photographs show the possible existence of a small Romano-British settlement overlying the NW corner of the hillfort; this lies in an area of quarrying and its outline is difficult to determine with certainty. A stone field wall crosses the S edge of the site and a re-erected OS trig point lies on its S perimeter. (15)

Geophysical survey by Paul Swaddle in 1994. (16)

Iron Age multivallate hillfort surviving as an earthwork on Warden Hill. The hillfort was seen and mapped from air photographs. The ramparts and an area outside the hillfort have been affected by Post Medieval extraction. All photography available to the project was examined but no evidnce was seen for a settlement inside or overlying the hillfort; enclosures both rectilinear and curvilinear were seen to the east of the hillfort and separately recorded as NY 96 NW 165. As mentioned by a previous authority, the entrance lies on the west and the gap in the rampart on the east is obviously caused by extraction. (17a)

Located on the English Heritage map of Hadrian's Wall 2010. (17b)

General association with HER 31490 and HER 31491. (17)