More information : A native fort with multiple ramparts and associated
enclosures near Corby's Bridge. (1)
NU 128102. Corby's Crags. Listed under pre-Roman Iron Age
multivallate forts, settlements and enclosures. (2)
Surveyed at 1:2500. (3)
Situated at NU 12650969 on a rocky hill spur there is a settlement
consisting of two occupational phases.
The first is represented by an enclosure, about 70.0 m N/S by 60.0 m
E/W, formed by the fragmentary remains of an earthen rampart (mainly
visible in the SE about 6.0 m wide 0.5 m high), with an outer ditch
(8.0 m maximum width and 0.7 m deep) and a causewayed entrance, about
8.0 m wide in the E, curving around about 20.0 m outside this
enclosure. In the SW are the remains of another similarly constructed
rampart which may be contemporary.
The next phase consists of two near circular stone-walled,
enclosures, the first, inner one, (which lies inside the above
mentioned earlier phase) is 54.0 m in diameter formed by a stony wall
(2.5 m wide 0.6 m high). There may have been an entrance in the NE
arc but it is now too robbed and mutilated to confirm. Two other
probably original entrances are visible; one in the SW and the other
in the NW. Set against the inside of this inner enclosure wall in
the SE are traces of two possible hut-circles visible as ill-defined
peat covered platforms about 7.0 m diameter, revetted around the
periphery by boulders. Also internally abutting the N side is
another possible stone founded hut about 5.0 m diameter.
The second or outer enclosure about 105.0 m in diameter (falls
outside the above mentioned earliest phase) and consists of a stony
wall spread to about 6.0 m and 1.5 m maximum height. It has three
entrances in the NE, SE and SW. The NE one may have had a hut site in
the enlarged terminal on its S side.
Some 30.0m S of this outer enclosure is a third almost certainly
contemporary stone wall (utilised as the northern boundary of a
later now mainly destroyed field system) built to protect this less
well-defended southern flank. There is an entrance near its E end
where it terminates at the foot of a slope. At its W end the wall
has continued northwards where about 28.0m of robbed walling are
still traceable across the rocky outcrop. Again a wall in the S
connects this outer wall to the second enclosure wall just E of its
southern entrance.
The initial phase here would appear to be an early Iron Age ditch
and rampart earthwork and the stone walled enclosures secondary Iron
Age/Romano British settlement. It does not warrant classification
as a fort as the situation is not defensive enough being overlooked
by higher ground to the SE.
Surveyed at 1:10000. (4)
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