MAIDEN CASTLE
Dorset, England.
The
hill fortress of Maiden Castle, one of the most imposing
of Iron Age defensive works surviving in W Europe, lies
4.8 km SW of Dorchester. This region contains a greater
number of large hill-forts than any other in Britain and
Maiden Castle dominates them all. The site is a saddle-back hill on chalk, overlooking the valley of the Frome
to the N. Its height is not commanding; it is the vastness
of the defenses which gives the fortress its peculiar
strength.
The hill was first occupied by a Neolithic settlement
covering ca. 4.8 ha. Later an enormous Neolithic barrow,
537 m long, was erected on the long axis of the hilltop.
Abandoned at the beginning of the Bronze Age, the hill
was next used by settlers in the Early Iron Age. At the
E end of the saddleback they constructed a fortification
with a single timber-fronted rampart, enclosing an area
of 6 ha. Later, the whole hilltop, some 18 ha, was surrounded by a rampart and ditch, with double gates at the
E and W ends. These entrances were shortly afterwards
provided with protective hornworks. Later still, probably
in the latter part of the 2d c. B.C., the defenses were
greatly increased in height and an outer rampart and
ditch were added. These massive works were again enlarged in the 1st c. B.C. and there were further changes
before the Roman invasion in A.D. 43. The most impressive works of the later Iron Age are still extremely well
preserved, notably the powerfully defended W entrance.
This powerful stronghold of the local population, the
Durotriges, was attacked and taken by a Roman force,
probably under the command of the future emperor Vespasian. A relic evocative of this contest is a cemetery
where some of the defenders were buried, amid the out-works of the E gate. The subsequent history of Maiden
Castle was more placid. The population left the fortress
well before the end of the 1st c. A.D., many of them
drawn to the new nucleus of Durnovaria (Dorchester).
Others perhaps settled in a peasant village near the
stronghold. Within the old defenses the latest known
ancient installation is a small RomanoCeltic temple and
an associated dwelling, erected about A.D. 370. The finds
are in the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R.E.M. Wheeler, “Maiden Castle,”
Dorset Research Reports of the Society of Antiquaries of
London 12 (1943).
M. TODD
