Hamsterley, County Durham
First screened 16 March 2008

Hamsterley – Background

The Castles, near Hamsterley, County Durham, is an archaeological conundrum. A massive rectangular dry-stone enclosure, some 75 metres by 90 metres, it has been described variously as an Iron-Age fort, a Roman penal colony, a native sub-Roman or Anglo-Saxon encampment, and a Romano-British farmstead.

In fact, no one actually knows what it is. There is visible evidence of ridge and furrow agriculture within the enclosure, a distinctive cell-shaped chamber next to the entrance on the east side and what appear to be stone steps built into the interior wall nearby. But there's also a suggestion that these most obvious features were reconstructed in the 1930s by an enthusiastic archaeologist, one Mr Hodgkin.

This enigmatic, scheduled site, now lightly covered with trees, has never been properly excavated. Durham's finds liaison officer Rob Collins, who carried out a basic geophysical survey of the site, has invited Time Team to solve the riddle of the Castles. Can the team do so in three days?

« Hamsterley home :Previous       Next: What they found »

Back to top^