The 5 best Iron Age sights in Britain
The Iron Age ran from around 800 BC until the Romans first arrived in 43 AD, who brought with them the technology to make steel and other metals. Before their arrival the people of Britain led a semi hunter-gatherer lifestyle they combined with farming a small selection of basic crops, such as grain and beans. With the most advanced material they had to work with being iron, their levels of technology were focused on farming and war, which led to a lack of a written language or the development of mortar and masonry.
Without the ability to set stone walls with mortar, buildings had to be made from either wood or stacked stone, with a clay and soil mixture in between for stability. Because of this, there were no castles or set stone buildings constructed during the Iron Age, and the closest thing they had to a castle was the earthen mound hill fort.
Most Iron Age sites that remain today are little more than the bottoms of the wall foundations, and all roundhouses and woodworks have long since rotted away. Here are the 5 best Iron Age sights in Britain to visit today and are all either reconstructions or the remains of the larger earthen mound settlements.
1) Maiden Castle – Dorset
Established around 600 BC, this huge hill fort gives a good idea of the amount of work people put into making their villages safe, and holds the title of the largest hill fort in Europe. When not out working in the fields during the day, the people would be hiding behind the safety of their walls as these independent settlements were often at war with one another.( An artist’s impression of how the hill fort may have looked in its day)
2) Castell Henllys Iron Age village – Pembrokeshire
This is one of the best examples in the UK of how Iron Age people used to live in a typical village. There are 5 homes and a couple of smaller outbuildings, one of which is a granary. The village has been constructed using traditional methods with as much accuracy as possible to how it would have been during its day. There’s a small visitor center that has numerous displays and information boards about all the Iron Age artifacts found at the site and is one of the best places to learn about how they lived.(Inside one of the roundhouses at Castell Henllys)