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You are here: Home / Search the Records / Search Results / Results of Search / Site Details

Site Details

Iron Age defended settlement south of Jenny's Lantern (Hedgeley)

(NU 11901514) Camp. (1)

'Bracken covered; occupies low knoll, but not the hill top. Wall of stone and earth, all in surprisingly good condition considering its situation amongst cultivated land. Defences: Northeast good; north west fair; south east wasted; south west very good. Entrance apparently at south west. Outcrops of local gritstone inside. Several hut circles, one (on highest point) in unusually good order. Traces of other habitation walls. Indication of a fourth rampart on SSW side is, I think, only a modern field boundary'. (2)

....... entrance on north side with the road away from it protected on west side by a strong rampart. Good water supply nearby. (3)

In October 1824 as a woman was reaping near this camp she took up a lachrymatory on the point of her sickle. (4)

Recent excavations by the Berwick Naturalist Club at the camp have disclosed the half of a porphyry quern. (5)

This earthwork is strongly fortified with three ramparts of stone and earth and two intermediate ditches and is situated on a plateau on the side of a hill facing south. The central bank on the north west side is c.1.5m high while the outer and inner banks vary from 0.3m to 0.6m in height. The defences on the south east are very weak but still definable. Entrances at north east and south west are well marked, the latter having transverse banks delineating the entrance passage. The earthwork at south west has been much disturbed and mutilated, possibly by stone robbers for the modern field boundary referred to, and requires re-surveying.
The interior has some fragmentary walling which partially divides the earthwork into three or four sub-divisions or annexes within which are 12 hut circles mostly abutting the internal rampart - these hut circles vary in diameter from 4m to 6m and there are no obvious entrances into them.
The site appears to be more of a defensive than pastoral nature and from the number of hut circles within the interior seems to have been well inhabited.
Present location of lachrymatory and quernstone not ascertained. (6)

Listed as pre-Roman Iron Age multivallate (forts, settlements and enclosures) with overlying settlement of round stone. (7)

A large multivallate Iron Age fort situated on high ground. Much of the interior contains the remains of stone founded hut circles and stone walling typical of later Romano-British settlement. In fair condition. Resurveyed at 1:2500. (8)

Jenny's Lantern multivallate hillfort. NU 120152. Lies on a spur below the highest point of the hill. Possible it originated with a single stone rampart. Final form comprised two ramparts and ditches and outer counterscarp bank. Non-defensive settlement lies to the east (NU 11 NW 20). (9)

Schedueld. (10)

Settlement, including internal features, visible on infra-red imagery. (11)

NU 119 151. Jenny's Lantern. Listed in gazetteer as a multivallate hillfort covering 0.28ha. (12a)
N4380
Roman (43 to 410)
Medieval (1066 to 1540)
Iron Age (800BC to 43AD)
Scheduled Ancient Monument
FIELD OBSERVATION (VISUAL ASSESSMENT), Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigation 1955; J H Ostridge
FIELD OBSERVATION (VISUAL ASSESSMENT), Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigation 1970; B H Pritchard
FIELD SURVEY, Field Survey in Northumberland 1981
INFRARED LINE SCAN AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, Northumberland 1993; RAF
FIELD SURVEY, Hill forts and settlements in Northumberland ; G Jobey


Source of Reference
Local History of Hedgeley

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