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Alwinton : Iron Age (700 BC – AD 50)

At Clennell Street (NT 918075), the remains of at least seven circular timber houses appear to have been enclosed within a wooden palisade set into a substantial trench cut from the rock. A similar settlement of at least eight timber houses within a palisade is known 200m NNE of Hosedon Linn (NT 916083). The Iron Age date assigned to both of these sites seems relatively secure, despite the lack of excavation, though a Later Bronze Age date is a possibility. At the Clennell Street settlement, this dating is supported by the associated narrow rigg ploughing, which is likely to be Iron Age in date (Topping, 1983).

The hillfort at Gallow Law (NT 920071) occupies a strong naturally defensive position with steep slopes on all sides. Though precise dating is impossible without excavation, comparison with other Northumbrian hillforts would suggest a date of construction some time after 600 BC, in the Early Iron Age (Oswald, Jecock and Ainsworth, 2000, 51).

The strong situation of the hillfort suggests that it was intended for use as a fortification, though a public display of power and status may have been equally important (McOmish 1999, 113). There seems to be no evidence of habitation inside the enclosure, though remains may exist below ground. However, the area inside the ramparts is not large, in common with many other hillforts in Northumberland, and is unlikely to have supported any sizeable population. Smaller hillforts may have served as defended farmsteads established by autonomous small groups, rather than proto-urban centres (ibid: 53).

In all likelihood, there is no single explanation for all so-called hillforts in the Cheviots; they may have served as animal enclosures, market places or trading stations, defensive enclosures, community centres, places of worship and expressions of power and status in a competitive society. Only detailed work, such as that recently undertaken by English Heritage as part of the "Discovering Our Hillfort Heritage" project, has the potential to understand this very complex situation.

The majority of the Iron Age population of this area is likely to have lived on small farmsteads, much as in preceding times, in roundhouses with adjacent stockyards, perhaps enclosed by a substantial bank or ditch, though the study area as yet contains no known settlements of this type.