One of the largest Iron Age hillforts in Britain, its huge banked earthworks spread across a hilltop just outside Dorchester
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Earthworks onlybanks, ditches and platforms — read the ground, not walls
Maiden Castle is a huge Iron Age hillfort just outside Dorchester in Dorset — not a stone castle, but a hilltop ringed by enormous banks and ditches dug by hand more than two thousand years ago. It covers about 47 hectares, which makes it one of the largest hillforts in Britain. At its peak, a few hundred years BC, several hundred people are thought to have lived up here behind those defences.
The banks you climb today were the fort’s protection: several rings of steep earth bank with ditches between them, built up over centuries and heaviest of all around the twisting entrances, which were laid out to slow down anyone attacking. The archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler dug here in the 1930s and found, among much else, late burials near the eastern gate. Long after the fort was abandoned the Romans put a small temple on the summit, and its foundations are still visible.
It’s free and open all year, looked after by English Heritage, with a car park at the bottom and a short but steepish walk up onto the banks. There are no facilities up top, so bring what you need, and it can be windy and exposed even on a bright day. Dorchester is a few minutes away if you want lunch or a look at the county museum, and Max Gate, the house Thomas Hardy built for himself, is on the same side of town.
More at the National Heritage List entry
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