Iron Age farmstead enclosure on Garway Hill

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

Overview

The upstanding and buried remains of a mid-to late Iron Age farmstead enclosure situated on the SE slopes of Garway Hill Common, approximately 500m ESE of the summit of Garway Hill. Artefacts found on the site include pottery sherds dated to the mid-to late Iron Age, and the platform of a roundhouse. There is a subsidiary enclosure to the immediate east. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1444523
Date first listed:: 07-Apr-2017

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

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

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

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:: 1444523
Date first listed:: 07-Apr-2017
Location Description:: Garway Hill Common, Garway, Herefordshire

Location

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

District:: County of Herefordshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Garway
District:: County of Herefordshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Orcop
National Grid Reference:: SO4425424921

Summary

Reasons for Designation

The Iron Age farmstead enclosure on Garway Hill, Herefordshire is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: the enclosure survives well as upstanding and buried remains, and has a range of features associated with its use; * Period: as a representative example of a singular farmstead enclosure of the Iron Age period, with evidence for continued agricultural use within and alongside the monument in the medieval and post-medieval period; * Potential: the good survival of the site and the soil conditions, suggest that there is good archaeological potential for a diverse range of features associated with its settlement activity such as the remains of roundhouses, grain and storage pits, cess pits, refuse pits; * Documentation: our understanding of the site is enhanced by an archaeological evaluation of the site in 2006, and previous recording in 1967 and 1972.

History

During the Iron Age (800 BC – AD 43) the number and range of settlements increased substantially. At a small scale, Iron Age farmsteads formed the dwelling places of individual families or kinship groups engaged in mixed farming, often at subsistence level. They typically consisted of clusters of roundhouses and rectangular timber structures within ditched enclosures.

The mid-to late Iron Age farmstead enclosure on the SE slopes of Garway Hill Common was recorded by the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club in their transactions of 1967. A further field investigation was undertaken in 1972. These reports describe the earthwork as rectilinear with sharply-rounded corners, of possible Iron Age date, and identify a post-medieval field boundary or causeway running through the NW and SW corner of the enclosure and continuing to the south. There were no remains of structures identified at this time.

In 2006 Herefordshire Archaeology undertook an archaeological evaluation of the site and concluded that the earthwork is a mid-to late Iron Age enclosed farmstead. The excavations identified the foundations of a round structure, the probable entrance to the enclosure on the E side, and sherds of Iron Age pottery. The evaluation also identified a sub-rectangular enclosure to the E.

Later activity at the site includes post-medieval field boundaries which run through the enclosure, and quarrying activity to the SW corner. To the S of the enclosure, running on a N to S axis and abutting the S bank and ditch are C13 or C14 cultivation terraces associated with medieval farming practices in the area.

Details

Principal elements: the upstanding and buried remains of an Iron Age farmstead enclosure situated on the SE slopes of Garway Hill Common, approximately 500m ESE of the summit of Garway Hill. Artefacts found on the site include pottery sherds dated to the mid-to late Iron Age, and the platform of a roundhouse. There is a subsidiary enclosure to the immediate east.

Description: the Iron Age farmstead is delimited by a sub-rectangular enclosure. The banks vary in length from approximately 50m to 64m, and are approximately 5m wide, and 2m to 3m high. The corresponding ditches survive at a depth of 1m to 2m and are between 3m and 5m wide. The S ditch is no longer visible due to the collapsed material from the S bank. The W bank and SW corner have been disturbed by post-medieval quarrying. The entrance to the enclosure is thought to be along the E bank where a modern track runs into the interior of the enclosure. A trench at this point found that there is no evidence of a cut in the bank, suggesting the position of the original entrance. In the southern half of the enclosure is the platform of a round house with possible evidence for a hearth, as well as a sherd of pottery dated between the C5 BC and the late Iron Age. Further pottery sherds from a single vessel dated to the mid-Iron Age, and various pottery sherds dating from between the C5 BC and the late Iron Age were identified in the E ditch of the enclosure.

Parallel with the E bank is a further enclosure constructed upon a natural terrace. It measures approximately 35m by 25m, and has a break in its E extent aligned with the supposed entrance to the principal enclosure. It may have been an annex to the settlement space or an area of agricultural activity relating to the farmstead.

A post-medieval field boundary runs on a N to S alignment through the enclosure and another runs on an E to W alignment from the SE corner. The C13 and C14 cultivation terraces to the S abut the S bank and ditch of the enclosure. These features, along with the current field boundary on the NE edge of the scheduled monument add value to the significance of the monument by enriching our understanding of the changing agricultural landscape in the vicinity.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING

The scheduling aims to protect the farmstead enclosure, and the subsidiary enclosure to the east. The scheduled area follows the NE field boundary and a line approximately 10m beyond the outer ditch of both enclosures to incorporate a sample of the surrounding archaeology. The maximum extent of the monument is approximately 128m west to east by 98m north to south.

EXCLUSIONS

All modern fences and fence posts are excluded from the scheduling but the ground beneath them is included.

Sources

Books and journals
Kay, R E, 'Three Unrecorded Earthworks from South-west Herefordshire' in Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club transactions, , Vol. 39, (1967), 40-43
Websites
Monument No. 107748, accessed 23 January 2017 from http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=107748
Other
Herefordshire Archaeology, 'Garway Hill Common, Garway, Herefordshire: An Archaeological Evaluation'. (December 2006)
RAF/106G/UK/ 1652 frames 1161 and 1162, The Historic England Archive

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.