(NY 98479208) Camp. (1)

Manside Cross (Gunners Box). Rectangular earthwork with multiple ramparts enclosing approximately 1 acre. (2)

A rectangular space about 65 paces east-west and 52 paces north-south strongly fortified with mounds and ditches, especially towards the north. It is situated on the summit of a hill about 1025 feet above sea level. Known locally as 'Gunners Box'.
The innermost mound has square corners but the outer ones have rounded corners with a radius equal to their distance from the inner one. The entrance appears to have been either at the south-west corner or near the east end of the south front. A gap in the outer mound at the north-east corner appears to have been for drainage purposes. (3)

Type C (Rectangular enclosures, including farmsteads and settlements presumed to be of Romano-British date). (4)

Manside Cross is one of the only two multiple-ditched rectangular sites known in the County (the other is Ewesley Fell Plantation NZ 09 SE 5). They are clearly defensive in nature, but there are no topographical reasons to account for their shape. Their context is uncertain, and defences might be taken to point to a pre or post-Roman date. On the other hand, a date in the Roman period is conceivable perhaps in some quasi-military setting, and a situation between two Roman roads (Dere St and Devil's Causeway) might be significant. (5)

Excavations at Manside Cross in 1959/60 failed to resolve the dateable context. Sections across the apparently strongly conceived defences showed that the upcast mounds were no more than 3ft high above the old ground level, but had been retained in every case on the sides facing the ditches by stone revetting. It was also shown that the inner ditch was primary. An unusual feature was the presence of a stone-packed palisade some 18! deep with intermittent post holes incorporated into the outer upcast mound on the central berm. There was no Provision for a palisade on the innermost mound where one might have expected. The interior was found to have been previously excavated, and the sites of only two huts were encountered, one completely removed, the other marked by a low ring of stones. Two abraded fragments of 2nd century cooking pot were found. If the defences at Manside are in fact pre-Roman Iron Age then by numerous analogies in the area, it would be necessary to regard the presence of stone huts as representative of a later phase of occupation. (6)

Surveyed at 1:2500. The work consists basically of two ditches varying in width from 6m to 9m, and averaging 1m in depth, with the fragmentary remains of three associated upcast mounds, which attain a maximum height of 1m. These enclose an area roughly 50m square, in which there are no longer any apparent structural remains.
The situation, although elevated, is not naturally strong and the earthwork, itself, does not reach fort proportions. Multiple defences and evidence of a palisade certainly implies a pre-Roman Iron Age conception but a rectangular plan not dictated by topographical considerations, and stone-founded huts are equally valid Romano-British characteristics. So that some transitional form of defensive earthwork-cum-settlement seems the most likely solution.
The fragment of outer bank and ditch noted by Hodges is no more than a recent boundary feature, and his 'tumuli' appear to have been destroyed by quarrying and afforestation. (7)

NY 984921. Manside Cross fort and Romano-British settlement. Well-preserved defences. (8)

Scheduled. (9)

Visible on thermal imagery. (10)