Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Promontory fort on Burton Point 550m south west of Burton Point Farm

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1013298
Date first listed:: 25-Jul-1973

User submitted image — Uploaded by David Dunford This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1013298
Date first listed:: 25-Jul-1973
Date of most recent amendment:: 06-Aug-1995

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Cheshire West and Chester (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SJ 30336 73568

Reasons for Designation

Promontory forts are a type of hillfort in which conspicuous naturally defended sites are adapted as enclosures by the construction of one or more earth or stone ramparts placed across the neck of a spur in order to divide it from the surrounding land. Coastal situations, using headlands defined by steep natural cliffs, are common while inland similar topographic settings defined by natural cliffs are also used. The ramparts and accompanying ditches formed the main artificial defence, but timber palisades may have been erected along the cliff edges. Access to the interior was generally provided by an entrance through the ramparts. The interior of the fort was used intensively for settlement and related activities, and evidence for timber- and stone- walled round houses can be expected, together with the remains of buildings used for storage and enclosures for animals. Promontory forts are generally Iron Age in date, most having been constructed and used between the sixth century BC and the mid-first century AD. They are broadly contemporary with other types of hillfort. They are regarded as settlements of high status, probably occupied on a permanent basis, and recent interpretations suggest that their construction and choice of location had as much to do with display as defence. Promontory forts are rare nationally with less than 100 recorded examples. In view of their rarity and their importance in the understanding of the nature of social organisation in the later prehistoric period, all examples with surviving archaeological remains are considered nationally important.

The promontory fort on Burton Point survives well despite the quarry and trackway which have both cut into it. It is similar to Iron Age forts found on the rocky coasts of Cornwall, Wales and the Isle of Man and is the only example of this type in this area of England. Unusually, it may also have served as a high status homestead during the post Roman period. Few such sites have been identified in this area.

Details

The monument includes a promontory fort formed by a single bank and external ditch which cuts off a small promontory known as Burton Point overlooking the estuary of the River Dee on the south west coast of the Wirral. Presently the settlement looks out over marshland and a crossing of the estuary to Basingwerk on the opposite bank of the estuary. Before the 18th century the east bank of the tidal estuary came up to the Point, and the rocks below the fort show signs of the erosion by wave action that resulted. To the north of the enclosure the rock has been extensively quarried for the hard sandstone underneath. This may have happened on the south side also resulting in the destruction of part of the enclosed area in this sector. The single rampart stands up to 5m high and is 12m wide at the base. It curves around to form a 50 degree angle for 68m and encloses a triangular tip of the promontory. The external ditch is 2m deep. Both ends of the defences have been truncated by erosion and quarrying. A trackway has been pushed through the defences on the south east side leading down to the present quarry floor below the fort. This is 6m wide and has further degraded the earthworks. The area enclosed by the rampart is 0.9ha in extent and is sufficient for a single farmstead. The fort seems at first sight to be one of a number of promontory forts in the county dating to the Iron Age. However the small size of this monument and the coastal situation seem more akin to the cliff forts of the coast of Wales and the Isle of Man. Some of the latter were the farmsteads of Scandanavian local dignitaries, although the type dates from the Iron Age through to the early medieval period. Close to the fort a cemetery including the remains of 50 or 60 burials of an unknown date was excavated in 1878. These were without grave goods and might have been of an early Christian date. They may also have been the remains of the boat crew of 41 drowned in 1637 and recorded in the parish register. At present there is no evidence that they were associated with the occupation of the fort.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 5 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 25695
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Bu'lock, J D, Pre Conquest Cheshire, (1972)
Longley, D, Prehistoric Sites in Cheshire, (1979), 41
Sulley, P, The Hundred of Wirral, (1889), 170
Other
Ordnance Survey , Ordnance Survey Record Card, (1994)

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.