Stanwick Iron Age Fortifications

The Stanwick Iron Age Fortifications, a huge Iron Age hill fort, sometimes but not always considered an oppidum, comprising over 9 kilometres of ditches and ramparts enclosing approximately 300 hectares of land, are situated in Richmondshire, North Yorkshire, England [1]. The site is a scheduled monument [1]. The fortifications are located 8 miles north of the town of Richmond and 10 miles south west of Darlington [1]. Rising to a height of almost 5 metres in places, the ramparts completely surround the village of Stanwick St John and form one of the largest Iron Age settlements in Britain, in extent if not necessarily in population [1]. Stanwick was the site of Sir Mortimer Wheeler's last major archaeological excavation in Britain, which he carried out over the summers of 1951 and 1952 [1]. Amongst Wheeler's most famous finds at Stanwick were an Iron Age sword, unusually still in its well-preserved ash wood scabbard, and the nearby skull of a severed head [1].