Practical Application of Survey Results

The survey results have enabled us, as ‘storytellers’, to pass on to the public through guided walks, displays, interpretive panels and leaflets a much more authoritative account of the monuments and their related landscapes.

The survey results have also been used to inform our approach to land management and in particular our negotiations with landowners and land managers

The results have also helped us to identify the main threats to the hillforts of Northumberland  National Park. They have highlighted that perhaps the biggest single threat to the National Park's archaeological heritage is the rabbit population!

In the late 18th century, local agricultural improvers Messrs Bailey and Culley noted that such rabbits as there were in Northumberland were confined to the sand dunes on the coast. At some of the most severely infested hillfort sites, such as at Castle Hill Alnham, there were no rabbits as recently as the 1970s.

Any Australian will tell you what an almost impossible job it is to control rabbits; it's a bit like trying to turn the tide back with a pitchfork. Further research into the best way to deal with the rabbit threat has been carried out at Harehaugh Camp, Castle Hill, Alnham and Middleton Dean, Ilderton.