Stockland Little Castle

Heritage listing

Details The monument includes Stockland Little Castle, a settlement of later prehistoric to Roman date known as a round. It is near circular in plan with an enclosed area of just over 1ha defended by a single rampart and ditch. The site is located on a hill-slope spur on the east facing slope of the long Greensand ridge which lies between the Umborne Brook and the River Yarty. The enclosed interior of the site has maximum dimensions of 126m north south by 104m east-west. The ground surface of the interior is slightly domed; this may be the effect of soil quarries for the construction of the rampart and this feature is particularly clear behind the inner face of the rampart on its south east side. The rampart survives over most of its circuit as an 8m wide earthen bank with chert and Greensand inclusions. It has an external height of 2.5m with a steep slope and near vertical inner face with a maximum height of 2m. The rampart has been broken through and levelled in two places in comparatively recent times: once on the south west side where just over 23m of the original bank was removed but then later mostly reinstated to leave a gap only about 6m wide; and once on the north east side where a 14.7m stretch has been removed and replaced by later banking and hedging. The location of the original entrance has been identified in archaeological survey by the presence of a causeway in the ditch forward of the area on the north east where the rampart was removed. The encircling ditch of the site survives as a visible feature on the north and east side of the monument where it is a maximum of 1m deep and between 5m-6m in width. It forms a wide depression in the field fronting the south east face of the rampart with a width from its outer lip to the rampart of 7m. Elsewhere on the

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.