Stanwick Iron Age Fortifications

Rising to a height of almost 5 metres (16 feet) in places, the ramparts completely surround the village of Stanwick St John and form one of the largest Iron Age settlements in Britain, in extent if not necessarily in population.

[6] Known as 'Wheeler's Wall', this entire section remains preserved by English Heritage and provides the visitor to Stanwick with a clear impression of how awe-inspiring the fortifications would have been in Iron Age times.

The next series of major archaeological excavations at Stanwick were carried out from 1981 to 1986 by a team from Durham University led by Percival Turnbull and Professor Colin Haselgrove.

[8] Turnbull and Haselgrove argued that Stanwick's huge outer circuit of ditches and banks had probably been built first, during the mid-first century AD, and then the inner area sub-divided.

They maintained that the six miles (9.7 km) fortification was too long to be easily defended and that its enormous size was intended instead to emphasise the power, prestige and wealth of its owner.