CASTLE O’ER FORT (NY241 928)

 This was the most spectacular of the Esk valley forts.  As you  climb up to it you can see how well defended it must have been and how impressive to anyone intruding into the valley.

It takes some effort to reach it, but the rewards are great views and the chance to investigate a very impressive site. You’ll probably want to return to this and other sites on the Trail, as the light at different times of the day and in different seasons brings them out in various ways.

As you make your way up the well-defined path, over the stile with nearby interpretation board, you come first to the imposing outer earthworks. The path leads on up to the east entrance through a further, inner rampart. The whole could give the impression of a short, intensive, well-planned, construction designed for protective purposes. In fact, the fort had a long life and was developed through several phases, which can be viewed best once you’ve reached the top of the hill.

As you approach the top you see two and here and there three separate ramparts, which in places are cut into the bedrock. It’s likely that in the early period of the site none of these existed, and that there were only huts surrounded perhaps by a palisade.

On the hilltop it is suggested that the innermost ramparts on the edge of the summit (II) were later insertions inside the earlier ramparts, which were downhill from them. (IA, IB). This, in the form of a thick stone wall, gave defenders a smaller perimeter to defend against attack, and with better natural advantages. The