Inside History
A Celtic roundhouse
The Celts lived in fortified settlements surrounded by banks and ditches known as hillforts. As the name would suggest, these hillforts were usually built on high ground but many of them have also been located on low-lying land. While these hillforts can be found across Europe, there are over 4,000 of them across Britain and Ireland alone. Iron Age Britain was a violent place to live and hillforts were easier to defend, although there has generally been little evidence to prove there was fighting at the hillforts that have been excavated so far.
The large communities and extended families who lived in hillforts had simple homes called roundhouses, which only had one room. Thanks to archaeological excavations of hillforts over the years, we have some understanding of what roundhouses looked like in the Iron Age. However, a lack of conclusive evidence also means there are many aspects of a roundhouse, such as the inside, that we can only speculate about.
The most famous hillfort in Britain is Castell Henllys in Wales, which was once home to the Demetae tribe. For over 20 years, archaeologists have been excavating the site and have discovered everyday items such as glass beads, charcoal, pieces of pottery and even carbonized bone, giving us an insight into ordinary Celtic life that revolved around farming and agriculture.
Based on archaeological evidence, three roundhouses – including one that was thought to have belonged to the tribe chieftain – as well as a blacksmith’s and a grain store have been reconstructed at Castell Henllys, just as they would have stood 2,000 years ago. The first one to be rebuilt, known as the ‘Old Roundhouse’, was excavated in 1981 and reconstructed the following year, with a staggering diameter of 10 metres. Today, it remains the longest-standing roundhouse reconstruction in Britain.