Roulston Scar

A massive Iron Age promontory Hill Fort only 20km from Farndale

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Directions

As you follow the A170 between Thirsk and Helmsley you will follow a steep climb at Sutton Bank and you will see before you a wooded cliff which dominates the land. What might not be immediately apparent is that this once formed an Iron Age hill fort on colossal scale.

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There is a car park and visitor centre at the top of the hill. It costs a bit to park your car. From there you can walk along the ridgeline by following the Cleveland Way, and after about a kilometre you will come to the hillfort of Roulston Scar. A little further along you will also see the top of a preserved hill figure, known as the Kilburn White Horse, a Victorian work, inspired by the story of the Kilburn Horse. 

Alternatively you can take the minor road which leads to the Yorkshire Gliding Club and there is a car park at the end. From there you can follow a slightly shorter path to Roulston Scar.

 

Iron Age Promontory Hill Fort on Colossal Scale

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Roulston Scar at Sutton Bank is a limestone cliff which overlooks the Vale of York, between Helmsley and Thirsk, some 20km to the west of Kirkbymoorside and Farndale. It is a large Iron Age promontory fort dating to about 500 to 400 BCE.

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The fort is built of timber palisades encircled by a two kilometre circuit of ramparts cut out of solid limestone. The scale of the site is extraordinary.

The English Heritage archaeologist Alastair Oswald was astonished by its scale, “Such a large fort would have taken a vast amount of timber and labour to build, which poses many more intriguing questions.”

Roulston Scar is the largest of a series of promontory forts located along the west and north edges of the Hambleton Hills. Promontory forts are a type of hillfort in which conspicuous, naturally-defended sites are adapted as enclosures by earth or stone ramparts placed across the neck of a spur to divide it from the surrounding land.

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The large, impressive scale of the fort was likely to have demonstrated aristocratic prestige as well as its defensive nature. The fort might have been sited on a boundary between the late Iron Age tribes known as the Parisi and Brigantes.

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