Early Man in the District of Huddersfield
By James A. Petch

LOCAL EARTHWORKS (C to R)

Figure 34. Plan of Camp, Castle Hill, Denby (after Morehouse)

CASTLE HILL, DENBY DALE.
Watson has no mention of this earthwork, portions of which are still clearly visible (see Figure 35 below). Morehouse gives a plan, here reproduced above, and mentions that "two large British weapons" have been found in the neighbourhood, one at Highflats, half a mile to the east, the other at about one mile to the west. The V.C.H. describes the position as a "commanding though not exactly a defensive situation on the slope of a hill." The earthwork seems originally to have been almost square, and two sides and an angle remain. The external ditch is from ten to twelve feet broad in its present state. In Domesday Book there is mention of a vaccaria at Denby, and this may be the fold mentioned.

Figure 35. Vallum and Fosse, Castle Hill, Denby

CASTLE HILL, RASTRICK.
"At Rastrick…was lately a mount called Castle Hill, which Dr. Johnson…in 1669, says was trenched about, and hollow in the middle, as if many stones had been got out of it. The circumference of it he measured to an hundred and eighty-eight yards within the trench, and on the top an hundred and seventeen, which shows the form of it. It has lately been destroyed for the sake of the stone which it contained, and it appeared upon examination that the top of it for a few yards perpendicularly, was cast-up earth, the rest a natural hill, the whole being left hollow at the top, seemingly with design."

CROSLAND MOOR.
The earthwork which the Ordnance Survey marks here is now almost obliterated. There remain only a slight depression and a mound of a half oval shape. In Watson’s day the remains were much more imposing. He describes "a couple of remains at a very small distance from each other on Crosland Moor, in the parish of Huddersfield; one of these is seventy-seven yards by sixty-four; but the greatest part of it, when I saw it, in 1759, was inclosed with a wall, and intended to be ploughed up. The other ninety-eight yards by eighty-seven. The vallum of this last was six yards and about one foot wide. The smaller has the appearance of a square angle, and the larger was rounded off a little at the corners. In the larger of them was found when it was ploughed up, three ancient mill-stones, each one foot in diameter, and eleven hollow places, two or three yards long apiece, and three quarters deep, or thereabouts." He goes on to say that the people called them Stot-folds, but could not explain the meaning of the term, and Watson suggests that it is the same word exactly as the Saxon for stables. The depressions would then, he suggests, represent huts. He insists that this is not a military work, and is obviously right on this point; but it is guess-work, and bad guess-work too, when he connects this work with Castle Hill, Almondbury, seeing in it a farm belonging to the garrison. This suggestion is quite baseless. Castle Hill, if it was one of the usual type of hill forts, that it, only used as a place of refuge in times of stress, never had a "garrison" in the strict sense of the term until Norman days, and it is no argument that Castle Hill is to-day visible from Crosland Moor. See also Hulbert’s Annal’s of Almondbury.

GILBERT HILL, LANGSETT (BROWNEDGE).
On this flat-topped hill are traces of a circular earthwork. On the south there is a steep slope, with a fine view over to the Derbyshire moors. The site is not at any point overlooked. Across its area runs a depression and a field wall has been built in modern times across this dip. There are possibly traces of more than one mound on the S.E. Watson does not mention this work.

LEE HILL.
"On the point of Lee Hill, near Slack, is a circular remain of an ancient encampment, about eighty yards each way, measuring to the outside of the agger (mound)(see Figure 36. below). It commands a fair view of Castle Hill, near Almondbury, as of the adjoining country. A bank, or trench, beginning a little way from this, runs up to Lindley Moor, to a place called the Watch Hill, which is a small round hill, seemingly thrown up for observation." The V.C.H. gives the area as about one and a half acres. Whatever Watson saw and described as the "bank or trench" has left no trace visible to-day. On the N.W. to N.E. there is a precipice which, having been used as a quarry, has destroyed part of the original area, and since 1912 much stone has been dug out of the earthworks for the repair of neighbouring walls.

Figure 36. Part of Circular Earthwork, Lee Hill, Outlane

On the hill-top immediately outside the earthwork there are the remains of what may have been funerary mounds, and these tumuli may provide the origin of the old tradition that here was the camp for the forces of Cadwallon and Penda in the struggle of 633 A.D.

Figure 37. Vallum and Fosse, Meg Dike, looking N.E.

THE MEG DIKE, BARKISLAND (Figures 37 & 38 - above and below).
This square earthwork may just possibly prove on excavation to be of Roman or of post-Roman date, though in the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to say who constructed it. It occupies a good strategical position to the east side of a lofty spur two miles west of Slack, and south of Krumlin; its plan and the profile of its ditches are not altogether un-Roman in appearance. There is a double rampart, measuring twenty-two feet from crest to crest, and rising six to seven feet above the bottom of the ditch, which in places has been driven through the solid sandstone rock. The northern angle was apparently originally rounded. On the south-east there is a drop of several hundred feet, and though part of the area has been quarried away, probably the original area was about one and a third acres. Watson gives the dimensions of the west ditch as fifty-three yards long, five yards wide, and two deep; that on the south, he states, is also fifty-three yards long. The area of the camp slopes gently to the east and has a south and east prospect. There appears to be no water nearer than the bottom of the valley beyond the modern road which cuts across the original area of the camp.

Figure 38. Fosse, Meg Dike, looking N.E.

PIPER WELL, BURNT CUMBERWORTH.
This curious feature is hard to place. It does not seem to be natural in origin, yet it is difficult to see who might have built such an erection, why, and when. Watson has no mention of it, but Morehouse gives a description as follows: - it consisted of a "considerable number of ridges running in tolerably parallel lines of irregular lengths of six to ten or twelve yards; they were crossed at right angles, at irregular distances of from seven or eight yards to fifteen or twenty, the lines not always very straight or continuous. Into many of these comparatively square compartments there was an entrance left in the trench of from one to two yards in width. In some of them the trenches were complete, forming a square, while other portions had no corresponding trench at the opposite end. These ridges were very uniform in height, seldom exceeding half a yard; they disappeared suddenly on approaching the declivities, but re-appeared at some distance on higher ground."

Whatever Morehouse saw, to-day only the outlines of the "entrenchment" are apparent. The “trenches” to south and north are still very deep, though irregular. Though now used as drains, it would seem that they are too deep to have never been anything else but drains. Rather it is possible that they were in existence before the field drains were laid and they were pressed into service for that end. Finally, the site is commanded from all sides within bowshot range, and whatever the place was it clearly had no military purpose.

Morehouse mentions the finding of small stones reddened by the action of fire. Near Broadstone Rivulet he reports the presence of a "floor composed of moderately sized grit stones, not squared but fitted irregularly together, covering a space of about four yards square." He also mentions the finding on a declivity to the rivulet and three hundred yards away of "a considerable quantity of iron scoriae." It is impossible to give any definite meaning to any of these scattered and indefinite remains.

RINGSTONE EDGE.
On the top of a flat plateau on this moor, with an extensive view on all sides save on the north, where there is a gentle slope for some hundreds of yards up to the summit of the hill, there are distinct traces of a circular ring of small stones. Pygmy flints have been picked up within a yard or two, but the only other fact to be noted about this "earthwork" is that there is a tradition to the effect that much earth has been removed from this site. It is not altogether impossible that this is the scanty remnant of a round barrow.

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