Kelsborrow Castle

Kelsborrow Castle
The former ramparts of Kelsborrow Castle
Location within Cheshire
General information
Architectural style	Iron Age hillfort
Country	England
Coordinates	53°12′12″N 2°42′08″W / 53.2034°N 2.702097°W / 53.2034; -2.702097
Technical details
Size	9 acres (4 ha)

Kelsborrow Castle is an Iron Age hill fort in Cheshire, northern England. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age. It is one of only seven hill forts in the county of Cheshire and was probably in use for only a short time. In the 19th century, a bronze palstave was recovered from the site. It is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Hill forts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC. The reason for their emergence in Britain, and their purpose, has been a subject of debate. It has been argued that they could have been military sites constructed in response to invasion from continental Europe, sites built by invaders, or a military reaction to social tensions caused by an increasing population and consequent pressure on agriculture. The dominant view since the 1960s has been that the increasing use of iron led to social changes in Britain. Deposits of iron ore were located in different places to the tin and copper ore necessary to make bronze, and as a result trading patterns shifted and the old elites lost their economic and social status. Power passed into the hands of a new group of people. Archaeologist Barry Cunliffe believes that population increase still played a role and has stated "[the forts] provided defensive possibilities for the community at those times when the stress [of an increasing population] burst out into open warfare. But I wouldn't see them as having been built because there was a state of war. They would be functional as defensive strongholds when there were tensions and undoubtedly some of them were attacked and destroyed, but this was not the only, or even the most significant, factor in their construction".

Although there are over 1,300 hill forts in England, they are concentrated in southern England, and there are only seven in Cheshire. Along with Eddisbury and Oakmere, Kelsborrow forms a small cluster of Iron Age hill forts within 3 miles (5 km) of each other, near the Mouldsworth Gap, a break in the central ridge that runs north–south through Cheshire. The hill forts at Eddisbury and Oakmere lie to the north-east and east respectively. Kelsborrow Castle is located at grid reference SJ53176752, 400 ft (120 m) above sea level. The site overlooks the Cheshire Plain to the west, south-west, and south. There is high ground immediately to the east of Kelsborrow Castle, rising to a height of 500 ft (150 m).