Four Hillforts of the Valley

Few Northumberland landscapes compress so much later prehistory into such a small compass as the slopes around Rothbury.

On the north side of the valley sit Old Rothbury Hillfort and West Hills Camp. On the south side are Tosson Burgh and Lordenshaws.

All four occupy carefully chosen spurs, knolls and terrace edges above the middle reaches of the River Coquet, and all are now protected as Scheduled Monuments.

Together they show that the valley was not guarded by one dominant fortress, but by a set of smaller, visually connected strongholds whose power probably lay as much in display, control of movement and local status as in pure defence. 

The four sites are not identical. Old Rothbury is the most complex of the north-side forts and includes outworks, hut circles and a small cairnfield. West Hills is far smaller but strikingly multivallate and still legible on the ground. Tosson Burgh is the most dramatically sited, a slight univallate fort perched above steep slopes with a fine southern entrance. Lordenshaws is the richest archaeological landscape of the group, because the fort sits within a much broader complex of Bronze Age cairns, cup-and-ring rock art, Romano-British settlement and a medieval deer park. In practical terms, Lordenshaws is also the easiest of the four to visit from a dedicated car park, while the north-side forts reward walkers starting in Rothbury itself. 

Two conservation messages stand out. First, this is still a working landscape of pasture, forestry, farm tracks and moorland access, so legal approach lines matter. Secondly, two of the most important monuments, Old Rothbury and Lordenshaws, are currently on the Heritage at Risk Register. That makes careful visiting more important, not less. 

A prehistoric amphitheatre above the Coquet

The four forts make sense when read as a single valley system.

Old Rothbury and West Hills occupy the north side of the Coquet above the western edge of Rothbury, while Tosson Burgh and Lordenshaws take the south side, the latter pushed higher into the upland fringe of the Simonside Hills.

What links them is not summit height alone, but their command of routes through and across the valley. Old Rothbury sits above rocky crags; West Hills projects on a spur; Tosson Burgh uses a naturally defended knoll; Lordenshaws dominates from a prominent spur on Garleigh Moor.

To my mind, that makes the “four hillforts of the valley” a better phrase than “four forts around Rothbury”, because what they really frame is a landscape corridor, not simply a toThis landscape has been studied in layers.

Antiquaries such as R. C. Hedley and David Dippie Dixon recorded Lordenshaws and Tosson Burgh in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Northumberland National Park research framework notes Hedley’s survey work at Lordenshaws and Tosson Burgh, and identifies Dixon’s Upper Coquetdale as the major antiquarian source for the area between 1890 and 1920. Later archaeologists including Peter Topping and George Jobey added modern survey and interpretation, especially at Lordenshaws.

Thanks to the combined work of Historic England, Northumberland National Park, local historians and later field survey, it is now possible to read these monuments not as isolated “camps”, but as parts of a long-lived valley landscape. 

For walkers and writers alike, the practical bonus is that the key public sources are unusually usable. Historic England’s list entries provide authoritative descriptions and downloadable mapping, while the Atlas of Hillforts adds LiDAR and satellite context for Old Rothbury, West Hills and Tosson Burgh. For route planning on the ground, OS Explorer OL42 is the essential paper map. 

The forts in detail

Old Rothbury Hillfort is the broadest and most structurally complex of the north-side pair. Historic England describes it as a later prehistoric hillfort with house platforms and a cairnfield, roughly oval in plan and measuring up to 165m east to west by 125m north to south within a complex of ramparts, ditches and outworks.

Natural defence is provided by steep crags on the south-west, while extra lines of defence strengthen more vulnerable corners and even continue upslope as an additional bank and ditch. Inside are at least five visible hut circles and a small D-shaped enclosure, while immediately outside the eastern entrance are scooped platforms interpreted as house platforms. Above the fort lies a small clearance cairnfield, two cairns of which have been partially excavated. Chronologically, the site is not directly dated by modern excavation, so its Iron Age date remains typological, based on form and comparable hillfort classes. 

Its present condition is two-sided. The monument still survives well enough to read as a substantial defended settlement, but it is also on the 2025 Heritage at Risk Register, where Historic England classifies it as having “extensive significant problems”, high vulnerability and private ownership, albeit with an improving trend. In blog terms, Old Rothbury feels like the site where archaeology and atmosphere meet best on the north side: the earthworks, the crags and the valley views still make sense together. Folklore helps that feeling. Antiquarian tradition recorded a belief that Cartington Cove below the fort was linked by a subterranean passage to Cartington Castle, and the same note remembered local rock markings there as “cups and saucers”. Whether anyone ever believed the passage literally matters less than what the story tells us: this hill above Rothbury was imagined as a place with hidden depth and old power. 

West Hills Camp is only about 650m west of Old Rothbury, but it is a very different kind of monument. Historic England and the Atlas of Hillforts describe a small multivallate enclosure lying on the highest point of a spur above the Coquet, with an enclosed area of about 0.15ha and an overall footprint around 130m by 140m. Its best survival is on the north and east, where an inner rampart stands up to about 1.5m high and sits behind a broad berm, while beyond are two more earth-and-stone banks and a deeply hollowed ditch. Three openings on the east side appear to mark former entrances. Unlike Old Rothbury, no secure internal structures are visible today. The fort is again typologically Iron Age rather than absolutely dated. 

West Hills is also the site where absence is informative. The Atlas states that no investigation has been carried out, and the Shepherds Walks guided-walk note repeats that it has never been excavated, although earlier field reporting mentioned hut circles now hard to distinguish. In other words, the site is archaeologically important precisely because it remains underexplored. Condition-wise, it is legible but damaged: the west and north-west were flattened or reduced by cultivation, and a field boundary cuts the enclosure. East of the fort are bedrock outcrops with prehistoric rock art, which strengthens the sense that West Hills sat within a much older sacred and settled landscape rather than a blank military position. I found no secure site-specific folklore attached to West Hills itself in the consulted sources, and it is best to say that plainly. 

Tosson Burgh Hillfort is the most theatrical of the four. Historic England classifies it as a slight univallate hillfort and places it on a prominent knoll west of Great Tosson, with steep natural defence on the north and west and commanding views over the Coquet valley to the north, west and east. The enclosure is oval, about 100m east to west by 45m north to south, within a single rampart and, on vulnerable sides, a ditch. The southern entrance is the clearest, marked by a break in the ditch and a well-preserved staggered rampart, while a hollow way leads west from it. Slight univallate hillforts as a class are usually placed in the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age, around the 8th to 5th centuries BC, and are often thought to have had relatively short use-lives before abandonment or rebuilding. For Tosson Burgh itself, though, that remains class-based dating rather than a result of modern excavation. 

This is also the one fort of the four for which the consulted public sources mention a notable artefact discovery. The Atlas records that a bronze axe was found within the enclosure in 1890 and that other prehistoric finds were reported on the hillside in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, although no fuller public detail is supplied. That combination of strong siting, sparse visible internal occupation and a stray bronze object is tantalising rather than conclusive. Access is relatively straightforward by local standards but still needs care: the best parking is at the Tosson Lime Kiln car park, and published Shepherds Walks route notes describe a signed public footpath from Great Tosson, with a marked turn for Simonside and a permissive spur to the fort itself. I found no secure fort-specific folklore here either, but Tosson Burgh stands within the imaginative shadow of Simonside and the wider Rothbury hills, so it belongs to a landscape thick with story even where one exact tale does not cling to the ramparts. 

Lordenshaws Iron Age Hillfort is the outlier and the masterpiece. Historic England’s scheduled area is not just a hillfort but a whole palimpsest: Iron Age fort, prehistoric field system and cairnfield, cross dyke, Bronze Age cairn cemetery, at least 50 decorated rock surfaces, two Romano-British settlements, part of a medieval deer park pale, later fields and even a lead prospecting pit. The fort itself is subcircular, about 70m by 45m within three ramparts of earth and stone, two ditches and an outer counterscarp bank, with opposing east and west entrances and at least three stone-founded circular houses in the interior. Historic England explicitly notes that the defences are of more than one phase. It also records prehistoric trackways leading to the entrances, a Roman-period settlement overlying levelled south-eastern defences, and a landscape history on the moor that spans five millennia. 


This is the one site where the prehistoric story broadens into something close to a ceremonial landscape. The decorated rocks date broadly to the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, around 2800 to 500 BC, and the cairn cemetery includes excavated cists, a cover slab still visible in the field, lost pottery and the compact group known as the “Warrior’s Graves”, where human bones were reportedly found in the 19th century. That folk-name matters. So does the wider official folklore of Simonside: Northumberland National Park records the tales of the Duergar, the little people or dwarf-like tricksters who lured travellers towards bog and cliff. Those stories are attached to the Simonside massif rather than to Lordenshaws alone, but when you approach the fort through rock art, cairns and moor-edge tracks, it is hard not to see why that part of the hills generated supernatural traditions. 

Lordenshaws is also the best documented in terms of modern access and management. The Prehistoric Society states that visitors have access through a management agreement involving the landowner, the tenant farmer and the National Park, and identifies the landowner as Duke of Northumberland. The same guide notes that Lordenshaws Farm covers 409 hectares on the eastern side of the Simonside Hills and can be reached by road from Rothbury, with parking close to the remains. Even so, Lordenshaws is currently on the 2025 Heritage at Risk Register with high vulnerability, a declining trend and Priority A status. In short, it is both highly accessible and highly fragile, which is exactly the combination that asks most of visitors. 

Walking the four hillforts

For most visitors, there are really three sensible ways to experience the sites. The easiest single-fort option is Lordenshaws from the dedicated Northumberland National Park car park at NZ 052 988, where parking for about 30 vehicles is listed and the fort can be folded into either a very short visit or a longer hill day. Forestry England’s Simonside pages add nearby free parking, green and red waymarked trails and the practical warning that the forest and ridge are no place for casual footwear or open fire.

For Tosson Burgh, the most convenient parking is the Tosson Lime Kiln car park at NU 027 009, followed by the signed public-footpath approach from Great Tosson and the permissive spur to the fort described in Shepherds Walks route notes.

For Old Rothbury and West Hills, the natural base is Rothbury itself, where Northumberland National Park lists two main car parks, one south of the river and Beggars Rigg to the west, while Shepherds Walks uses Cowhaugh car park as a standard start. 

The best Shepherds Walks-style linked outing is a full-day circuit from Rothbury that joins all four, but it should be sold honestly as a strenuous day rather than a casual ramble. Using the 2021 guided-walk sequence as the backbone, and comparing it with the published 13km Simonside route, the 15km Valley of Rothbury route and the 12km Lordenshaws loop, a practical all-four-forts day comes out at roughly 19 to 21km, with around 650 to 800m of ascent and about 6½ to 8 hours of walking time, depending on whether you take a high line over the Simonside ridge or use lower tracks beneath it. That estimate is an inference from published route lengths and the known guided-walk sequence, so it should be treated as approximate rather than GPS-verified. 

A clean version of the route is this: Cowhaugh car park, Rothbury NU 057015 → Old Rothbury NU 04615 01980 → West Hills Camp NU 03793 02088 → descend via Physic Lane towards Thropton and cross the valley → Tosson Lime Kiln NU 027009 → Tosson Burgh NU 02346 00481 → continue by Great Tosson/Simonside paths and tracks to Lordenshaws car park NZ 052988 → Lordenshaws fort NZ 05554 99220 → descend towards Rothbury on established rights of way and tracklines shown on OL42. That is the route I would recommend for a magazine-style “four hillforts” feature because it tells the valley story in the right order: north-side pair first, crossing second, upland culmination last. 

If you want shorter, cleaner outings, two half-days work especially well. Old Rothbury plus West Hills make a rewarding 5 to 6km moderate circuit from Rothbury, mostly on tracks and local paths above the town. Lordenshaws can be done as a short archaeological visit of 1.5 to 2km return from the car park, or expanded into the published 12km moderate Lordenshaws walk. Tosson Burgh from the lime kiln is best treated as a short but steep out-and-back, ideal if you want the fort without committing to Simonside itself. 

Practical safety advice follows directly from the official and published walk notes. Wear strong boots, carry waterproofs, and expect exposed conditions on the Simonside approaches. At Simonside, Forestry England explicitly warns against lighting BBQs, campfires or stoves. Keep dogs under proper control around livestock, stay on rights of way or clearly signed permissive routes, and remember that every one of these places is a protected monument, so no digging, stone moving, bike erosion or “improving” of earthworks for the sake of a photo. 

Comparative table