Excavations on the Wrekin, Shropshire, 1939

Westward on the High-Hilled Plains

“…Stanford was a good field archaeologist and his recording of the hillforts at Croft ambrey, and Midsummer hill (stanford 1974; 1981) is as good as, if not better than, other more celebrated practitioners of the era. earlier excavations by Kathleen Kenyon at the Wrekin and sutton Walls, and thalassa hencken on Bredon hill (Kenyon 1942;1953;hencken 1938) were also good. Many of these sites produced substantial collections of artefacts, which include important assemblages of iron and bone tools that are still not common in many areas of Britain.…”

Geophysical surveys of Bury Walls hill fort, Shropshire

“…Yet it is often characterized as the principal hill fort of the Cornovii, the evidence for this coming from the suggestion that it was from this site that their civitas capital was named (Rivet and Smith, 1979). There is little in the excavations that have been carried out on the site to confirm the prestige nature of the occupation (Kenyon, 1943;Stanford, 1985), and its exposed position begs the question whether it was habitable all year round. Other hill fort sites, such as Titterstone Clee or the Breiddin, were certainly occupied even though exposed, but where evidence for prestige occupation is found, as at the Breiddin, it is early in date, belonging in the late Bronze Age (Musson, 1991;Lynch et al, 2000).…”

Assessing Iron Age Marsh-Forts

“…Excavation during the 1940/1950s concentrated on some of the region's more spectacular hillforts (e.g. Kenyon, 1942;Varley, 1948), and this focus continued throughout the 1960/1970s (Gelling, 1965;Stanford, 1967). Stanford was among the first to understand that Shropshire (and the Welsh Marches) evinced a broad chronology; the multi-period settlement and funerary complexes at Bromfield near Ludlow and Sharpstone Hill near Shrewsbury provide examples (Stanford et al, 1982;Barker et al, 1991;White and Wigley, 2010).…”

“…Drawing on this body of archaeological evidence, the societal landscape which greeted the Romans when they arrived in North Shropshire circa AD40 was well-organised and well-populated. However, although military suppression must have been traumatic and defences were reinforced at several hillforts (for example, the Wrekin (Kenyon, 1942) and Titterstone Clee (White et al, 2013)), indications of conflict are few and uncertain, and the Roman invasion of this area did not appear to result in wholesale slaughter (Millett, 1992;White and Barker, 2002:32). The most regularly cited evidence for conflict was the burning of the Wrekin circa AD90 (Stanford et al, 1984;Webster, 1991;Millett, 1992); however, the radiocarbon dating for this action is questionable, and the two Roman javelin heads found on site are not guaranteed to be directly associated with battle (Wigley, 2017a).…”