Hunsbury Hill

[2] Ironstone extraction began at the hill fort in about 1883,[3] after an attempt to have the site protected under the Ancient Monuments Act of 1882 failed due to the cost of compensating the landowner.

Many of the fort's internal features were destroyed, but the work revealed up to 300 pits which, according to the curator of Northampton Museum in 1887, contained "numerous artefacts that now comprise one of the finest collections... of Prehistoric antiquities in England".

The finds included iron weapons and tools, bronze brooches, pottery, glass and around 159 quern-stones.

Parts of the fort's banks have been badly eroded because of the 19th-century quarrying, the effects of burrowing European rabbits and damage from tree roots.

[4] The area around the hill is the large Northampton housing estate called West Hunsbury.