Castle Ring Hill Fort
The site includes the earthwork and buried remains of an Iron Age hillfort and the ruins and buried remains of a small medieval building identified as part of a hunting lodge. Castle Ring was built as a fortified settlement, known as a hill fort, during the Iron Age period between the sixth century BC and the mid-first century AD and is one of several located at prominent sites in the region. Hill forts are generally regarded as centres of permanent occupation, defended in response to increasing warfare, a reflection of the power struggle between competing elites. Castle Ring’s listing as a Scheduled Monument states that it is a good example of a multivallate hill fort, defined by two or more lines of concentric earthworks.
Built at the highest part of Cannock Chase on its south-eastern edge and at a height of nearly 800 ft (242m) above sea level, its commanding position dominates the local landscape, providing not only defence, but also displaying the status of its inhabitants. The ramparts and ditches will retain archaeological information on the construction of the hillfort, in particular, the partly silted ditches will retain environmental evidence relating to the economy of the site's inhabitants and the landscape in which they lived.
Whilst hill forts are characteristic monuments of the Iron Age archaeological evidence suggests that, in some cases, they may have developed from enclosed settlements of the earlier Bronze Age. Although flint implements of Bronze Age date have been found at Castle Ring no definite conclusions can be drawn on such an early occupation of the site. Castle Ring lay within lands controlled by a Celtic tribe, the Cornovii, in the pre-Roman era. They seem not to have had a pottery industry and probably had a mainly pastoral lifestyle, using wooden bowls and utensils. The tribe is also unusual in having produced no coinage of its own. In its heyday Castle Ring would have been a centre of activity for the surrounding area, perhaps with a settled community living within the protection of the rampart, in round houses up to 20-40 feet across. The site would have acted as a refuge for a scattered farming community in times of trouble. The centralised power of the Romans with their military organisation and might meant that many hillforts were then abandoned as people adopted a more Romanized lifestyle centred on villas and towns, such as at Letocetum (Wall) and Pennocrucium (Penkridge) on Watling Street.
In the north-western corner of the interior of the Ring there are the earthworks and excavated remains of a small building which sits on a relatively level shelf dominating the remainder of the enclosure. The remains indicate a medieval building of high social status and the wide foundation walls, together with documentary references to a winding stair, suggest that originally there was a first-floor chamber above the two lower cells. It is unlikely that this building stood in isolation and ancillary structures are believed to survive as buried features particularly on the level shelf along the western side of the hillfort. Cannock, in the royal forest, was visited by both William II and Henry I, and the existence of a hunting lodge is confirmed in the reign of Henry II with the payment of a penny a day to its keeper. The abandonment of the lodge at Cannock appears to have occurred early in Henry II's reign and in 1189 the manors of Cannock and Rugeley were granted to the Bishop of Lichfield. The first reference to any building by the bishops at Beaudesert is in an account of 1304-5 which refers to a hall and stables, but it is unclear whether the expenditure was on the buildings within Castle Ring or on the episcopal manor house later to become Beaudesert Hall.
The ramparts now have a uniform broad flat-top which is thought to have been created when the bank was in use as a walkway from which to view the landscape in the 18th or early 19th century. Two other paths, one running across the hillfort interior and the other skirting the northern defences are believed to be contemporary with this walk and were laid out as carriage rides from the lodge of Beaudesert Hall, the 16th century home of the Paget family which was situated approximately 1km to the north east of Castle Ring and was largely demolished when Charles Paget, 6th Marquis of Anglesey, retrenched to his estate at Plas Newydd.
Castle Ring is owned and managed by Cannock Chase District Council.
