Banjo Enclosure and Burial Mound in the Yorkshire Dales

In July 2004 in a heavy rain, we found a banjo enclosure. We only visited this site very briefly as the weather was getting worse, and we hope to return next year to gain more information about the site layout and function. However, we did get an overall impression of the site layout from aerial photographs and map evidence, this provided us with further understanding of what we were looking at from the ground. You can usually pick out the banjo enclosure through aerial photographs of soil marks or cropmarks.

The first banjo enclosures were located in Wessex mainly to control livestock’s and they are fairly widespread across the British Isles. Most often the banjo enclosure is to be found situated on hill slopes or valley sides, with a trackway leading up slope towards the central enclosure. Banjo enclosures occur as isolated sites, as pairs, and occasionally as a group of three. And an important part of any community activity in control of animals and are not for defence or any other means as far as we are aware. The banjo enclosure that we found also shows signs of been a much earlier structure due to the Bronze Age burials mound located near to the entrance of the enclosure.

Most of the enclosures are usually curvilinear plan of 0,6 haters and with sides and a ditch along with an outer bank, a single entrance and bounded by a double parallel ditches defending a trackway. The dating of the banjo enclosures is done mainly by C14 or pottery that has been recovered from the excavated area. The archaeological excavations has shown that the banjo enclosures to dating from 400 and 100 RCYBC. The best possible evidence is the pottery that is sometimes found and recent studies have also shown that the enclosures have been in use since Roman conquest of the British Isles. So far only four actual enclosures have been excavated around Hampshire and Oxford, that has shown the ditch to be of a V profile around one to two metres deep, and between two to four metres wide at the top. The banks are between two to five metres across.

An archaeological excavation, within the enclosures has shown to be quite complex with a widespread of human occupation, storage pits, gullies and records of structures due to the postholes and round houses and gateway and fences have also been discovered. The approach to the entrance of the main enclosure comprises a trackway bounded on either side by a bank and ditch that are contiguous with, and constructed in the same manner as, the earthwork bounding the central enclosure. These trackway range in length from about 45m to over 90m, are almost always longer than the diameter of the enclosure, and range from about 5m to 10m wide. Even so, they are no such formal typology of banjo enclosures has been ever published mainly due to the lack of understanding or the lack of excavations on the feature. The estimated total of banjo enclosure has been between 200 to 250 known sites but the figure may be much larger than we have estimated

I had a look at a website named Brigantes Nation who seems to have called this an Hill fort. Well its not. First I do know what I am on about and secondly I have seen a hill forts. The enclosure is banjo shape hence the name banjo enclosure. Sorry if you think it's a hill fort. You could never defend it as the attacking force could though spears or what ever they had to hand from the high ridge that is above the banjo enclosure. So many website like the above give the wrong impression from a professional point of view as a landscape archaeologist. And no way is it Roman in date. So what is the definition of a banjo enclosure? A monument consisting of a small (generally less than 100m diameter) subcircular enclosure with a narrow approach way consisting of parallel ditches (thus banjo shaped). Believed to be associated with stock management in the Later Prehistoric period. Have a look for a book called Michledever Wood, Hampshire By P J Fasham.

Sorry but no way is it a hill fort.

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