Free Republic

...People used the hilltop from the Neolithic period through to Roman times, but the main settlements here date to the later Bronze Age and Iron Age (from about 1000 BC to AD 43).The discovery of a stone axe and flint tools here suggests that the hill was first occupied in the Neolithic period. The first direct evidence of a settlement, however, dates to about 1000 BC, before the first ramparts were built.The settlement appears to have been surrounded by some sort of palisade or fence. Each roundhouse was built using wooden posts with wattle-and-daub walls. A central post probably supported...

A powerful group of senior archaeologists are sharpening their trowels to fight "ethically unacceptable" plans they say will destroy one of the nation's greatest Iron Age treasures. Old Oswestry Hill Fort, an imposing ancient feature that dominates the skyline on the fringe of the Shropshire market town, is on the frontline of an increasingly bitter struggle pitting historians and residents against the local authority and central government. At stake is the ancient rural surroundings of the hill fort, an elaborate, 3,000-year-old earthwork dubbed "the Stonehenge of the Iron Age". It is said to have been the birthplace of Queen Ganhumara...

Today the magnificent 3,000 year old Shropshire hillfort of Old Oswestry is in the news while campaigners fight to halt several proposed housing developments that threatens both the setting and archaeology surrounding the monument. But, as if to highlight the importance of this place, a new discovery from 2008 has been dubbed the Oswestry Pegasus Stone. The engraved stone currently stands in the Oswestry Town Museum and Professor George Nash was invited by Rodney Farmer to review the previous interpretation. The stone was recovered during an archaeological watching brief in February 2008 from undergrowth near the main entrance to Old...