Hillforts

South Barrule

More than 70 small roundhouses, crowded onto the 480-metre summit of South Barrule, make up the Island’s most impressive hillfort. A double rampart surrounds them - the outer ring later than the inner - and archaeological evidence has shown that the site was occupied between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago. Fragments of Bronze Age pottery, the only objects which remained, can be seen in the Manx Museum.

Cronk Sumark

Cronk Sumark is a smaller hillfort. This is a very dramatic and virtually impregnable site, on a steep-sided rocky hillock overlooking the Island’s northern plain. It has never been excavated, but has been dated to the Iron Age on the basis of comparison with similar sites elsewhere in western and northern Britain.