In 2013, this trench was further investigated and the burnt deposit was seen to cover the remains of a timber aisled hall. Again, no ditch was evident, and a burnt deposit was found within two parallel lines of palisade slots. In 2012, a trench opened to the west of the ‘entrance gap’ revealed that the bank was covered on both northern and southern sides with a capping of stones, and a stone-lined cist, with a broken leaf-shaped arrowhead, was uncovered on the northern side. A pit containing sherds of Neolithic pottery was found on the southern side of the bank. The bank itself was found to comprise large stone slabs on its north-facing side, and burnt clay on its crest. No ditch accompanying the bank was found, but a historically-recent quarry was intercepted. In 2011, a trench was dug across the bank where it appeared to survive best, close to its eastern limit, and well to the east of a putative entrance gap. The low earthen bank that extends east-west for 120m across the narrow neck of the promontory was surveyed by English Heritage in the late 1990s, and it was concluded that it was a defining feature of the putative enclosure. The site was test-excavated by Roger Pye and members of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club in the 1960s, and was provisionally classified as a Neolithic hilltop enclosure. The field occupying the hilltop was cleared of scrub and levelled to be brought into cultivation during the Second World War, and had, by the 1960s, produced a significant assemblage of worked flints. The hilltop at Dorstone Hil is a promontory extending south-westwards from the ridge separating the Dore and Wye valleys east of Hay-on-Wye. Irene Garcia-Rovira, Ellen McInnes and Lara Bishop of the University of Manchester have supervised the work in the field during all four seasons. The project has deployed local volunteers and students from (mostly) the Universities of Manchester, Kyushu and Cardiff. ![]() Keith Ray, formerly County Archaeologist with Herefordshire Council, in association with Professor Koji Mizoguchi, of Kyushu University, Japan, and Tim Hoverd of Herefordshire Council. The project has been directed by Professor Julian Thomas of Manchester University and Dr. Investigations at Dorstone Hill in the parish of Dorstone in the Dore Valley, Herefordshire, have taken place annually since 2011, with the aim of investigating Neolithic settlement in the area just to the south of the chambered tomb of Arthur’s Stone.
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