Castle How hillfort

Scheduled monument

What is recorded here

Castle How is a compact Iron Age hillfort on a crag above Bassenthwaite Lake. Several banks and rock-cut ditches guarded its easier approaches, and an early twentieth-century investigation found heated stones, stonework and pieces thought at the time to be Roman.

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Who made it and when

An unnamed community probably built the fort during the Iron Age. Its small size and several defensive lines place it among a northern group of fewer than 100 known examples. Finds once judged Roman raise the possibility of later use, though they do not settle its date.

How it was made and used

Natural cliffs protected the north and south. Across the western approach, builders cut four ditches from the rock and piled the waste into banks; two more lines covered the east. A narrow causeway led through the eastern gate, and a rocky barrier guarded the final approach to the summit.

What was found

R G Collingwood investigated the site in the early 1920s. He recorded stones cracked by heating and cobbled facing for the defences. Two pieces of red sandstone were also noted: one worked fragment went to Keswick Museum, and another was then interpreted as part of a Roman roof tile.

What remains

A level summit about 38.5 by 18 metres sits within the defences. A low raised edge on the north may be the foot of a former bank. On a ledge to the south-east, a flattened patch about 6.5 by 2.7 metres may mark a hut.

Why it mattered

Castle How used a dramatic lake-side crag to make a small enclosed place hard to reach and easy to watch. Its unusually complex approaches, possible home platform and uncertain later objects together offer evidence for defence, daily life and reuse in the northern uplands.