More information : SJ 973 721 Earthwork on Toothill referred to by Earwaker (2), Sainter (3), and others as a Roman Camp. An excavation in 1906 by the Manchester Classical Society produced only some possible roofing tiles of stone about 3' by 2'. No other facts were reported. A survey was made in 1960 by F. Thomas and H. Crayshaw, who concluded that Toothill was never a fort owing to disadvantages of defence, and suggest that it was possibly an enclosure or deer hay used in connection with hunting in Macclesfield Forest, and could have been constructed in any period from late Saxon to the 13th century (1).
[See AO/62/170/8] (1-3).
A quadrilateral enclosure sited in an exposed position on the top of a hill at SJ 9716 7204. It appears to be of no great antiquity. It is not defensive but its purpose could not be deduced. Surveyed at 1/2,500. (SJ97167204) Enclosure (NR) (4).
SJ 9715 7203. Deerpound on Toot Hill. Scheduled (5-6).
The possible medieval deer pound or hay on Toot Hill was visible as an extant earthwork on lidar imagery and the latest 2015 oblique aerial photography and was mapped as part of the Cheshire National Mapping Programme project.
The slightly irregular rectilinear enclosure, consisting of an exterior ditch and interior bank, measures approximately 59 x 47 metres. A later extractive pit is dug into the southernmost corner of the enclosure's bank. The perimeter ditch is abutted to the west and cut to the north-east by later field boundaries (UID 1600858) and both bank and ditch are broken to north-east and south-west by later trackways (UID 1600859). A smaller quadrilateral feature (19 x 18.5 metres) is visible as a shallow ditch in the centre of the larger enclosure (7-8).
|