Old Oswestry is a substantial multivallate Iron Age hillfort crowning a hill on the Shropshire–Welsh border, enclosing approximately 16 hectares within up to seven ramparts and ditches. Occupation spans roughly the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD, evolving from a simple palisaded enclosure into one of the most elaborately defended hillforts in Britain, with distinctive deep hollows or "pits" flanking its western entrance whose function remains debated (cattle pens, water cisterns, or quarry scoops have all been proposed). Although classified here as a Roman military fort, it is fundamentally a pre-Roman native site, likely abandoned or much diminished by the Roman conquest of the region in the AD 70s under Frontinus.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Located near the contested frontier between the Cornovii and the Ordovices, Old Oswestry sat in a landscape transformed by the Roman advance toward Wroxeter (Viroconium) and the Welsh interior, though it appears to have played no direct role in the Roman military system itself. It is sometimes romantically associated with the legendary stronghold of Caractacus, though there is no firm evidence linking him to the site.
The principal investigations were W. J. Varley's excavations in 1939–40, which established a sequence beginning with a timber-palisaded enclosure, followed by successive rampart phases culminating in the elaborate western entrance ear
Old Oswestry is a substantial multivallate Iron Age hillfort crowning a hill on the Shropshire–Welsh border, enclosing approximately 16 hectares within up to seven ramparts and ditches. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Old Oswestry is classified as a Roman fort — a military site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Roman military site at Rhyn Park (6.1 km), Ffrith (24.3 km), Roman villa at Cruckton (24.9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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