Crossing Thresholds: Entrances in Stone

Abstract

The northwestern entrance to the main promontory fort at Castell Henllys had a complex series of entrance gates during the palisade phase, and these were replaced with a stone entrance when the earthworks were constructed in Period 2. The first stone phase comprised a double pair of semicircular guard chambers, together with massive timber uprights for the gate structures, and internal and external walling. All the walling was drystone construction, largely of shale quarried from the promontory slopes. The gateway was modified with posts replaced and added, and then it collapsed. At some point one part of the gateway suffered high temperature burning, creating slaggy material from the shale, equivalent to vitrification. The gateway collapsed, to be replaced by a second stone phase in Period 3, with a single gate and one pair of shallow guard chambers, internal walling and external convex walling. In both periods there were also outer timber structures on the approach to the gate.