Castle Ring is an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

, situated high up on the southern edge of

Cannock Chase Cannock Chase (), often referred to locally as The Chase, is a mixed area of countryside in the county of Staffordshire, England. The area has been designated as the Cannock Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is managed by Forestry E ...

(The Chase),

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...

, England. It is the highest point on The Chase with an elevation of 242 metres (794 feet). Castle Ring Digital Terrain Model

It is near the village of

Cannock Wood Cannock Wood is a village and civil parish in the Cannock Chase district of Staffordshire, England. The village is situated around east of Cannock, the same distance south of Rugeley, and north of Burntwood. According to the 2011 Census, the ...

, south of

Rugeley Rugeley ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cannock Chase District in Staffordshire, England. It lies on the north-eastern edge of Cannock Chase next to the River Trent; it is situated north of Lichfield, south-east of Stafford, nor ...

and north of

Burntwood Burntwood is a former mining town and civil parish in the Lichfield District in Staffordshire, England, approximately west of Lichfield and north east of Brownhills. The town had a population of 26,049 and forms part of Lichfield distr ...

, adjacent to the

Heart of England Way The Heart of England Way is a long-distance walk of around through the Midlands of England. The walk starts from Milford Common on Cannock Chase and ends at Bourton on the Water in the Cotswolds linking south Staffordshire through Warwicksh ...

. There are excellent views over The Chase, the Trent Valley and Staffordshire more generally. The public are free to walk around it as there is a path.

History

Castle Ring is thought to have first been occupied around 50 ( CE), by an Ancient British (Celtic) tribe named the

Cornovii The Cornovii is the name by which two, or three, tribes were known in Roman Britain. One tribe was in the area centred on present-day Shropshire, one was in Caithness in northernmost Scotland, and there was probably one in Cornwall. The name h ...

. Apart from perimeter earthworks, little remains visible. Parts of the ground in the ring appear to have been ploughed, but there is no consensus as to whether this was carried out in prehistoric times, or in the medieval period, when a hunting lodge was also built in the ring. The remains of this lodge are still visible.

External links

Ancient Britain - Castle Ring

Web site of Heart of England Way Association

From 'The Megalith Map'
*

History

External links

See also