Yeavering Bell
Yeavering Bell
Yeavering BellOf all the special places in Northumberland National Park, Yeavering is arguably the most special of all. Here, in a dramatic landscape setting on the edge of the Cheviots, stand the remains of the largest Iron Age hillfort in the region.
Beneath this hillfort, Yeavering Bell, the Anglo-Saxon kings of Northumbria maintained a grand palace. Much earlier, Neolithic people had a temple here, and Bronze Age communities buried their dead in the shadow of Yeavering Bell.
In 1998 a pilot archaeological survey project was carried out at Yeavering Bell resulting in a twenty five year Management Agreement with the landowner to protect all of the archaeologically sensitive areas.
Negotiations also resulted in an extensive programme of drystone walling work and bracken spraying, the production of the first proper archaeological survey of the hillfort by English Heritage, and the setting up of a new heritage trail centred on the hillfort itself.
Yeavering Bell hillfort consists of a tumbled stone rampart, originally up to 2.5 metres high, which encloses an area of 5.6 hectares, within which are the still visible platforms of about 130 timber-built roundhouses. The construction and maintenance of so many timber buildings demonstrates the abundance of local mature woodland during the Iron Age period, despite the clearances of earlier times. Presumably, such woodland was carefully managed and used for a multitude of purposes including the provision of timber for building and fuel. Also within the fort, around the eastern summit of the Bell, is a large ditched enclosure of uncertain purpose which is demonstrably later than some of the house platforms. The slight remains of a much earlier burial cairn can also be seen within this ditched enclosure.
Order a copy of Yeavering - People, Power and Place from our on-line store to learn about the archaeology of the area.
