Yeavering Bell Hillfort

You can't go far in the Cheviots without stumbling upon a hillfort or two. In fact I can't think of a walk I have been on where I haven't found some sort of settlement, homestead or hillfort.

But the chaps who built the Yeavering Bell Hillfort firmly believed in the mantra "Go big or go home!" as this one is the largest in the whole of Northumberland.

Its distinctive twin peaked summit stands out in the landscape at the northernmost point of the Northumberland National Park and it's a great one to use to get your bearings if you've wandered off the route to look at a shiny stone or a little cairn.

Even from a distance you can make out the surrounding wall of the hillfort.

We used the Fabulous North pigeon to get some cool video footage of the hillfort.

Clambering up to the top with your feet is no small feat! The summit of the Yeavering Bell Hillfort is 361m high and I always seem to end up approaching it from Easter Tor which means you have to descend right to the bottom of the hill and climb the lot. But it's mega views from up here all around the Glendale Valley so you can understand why it was built here.

Obviously it's difficult to truly see the magnitude of the hillfort from ground level so we sent up the Fabulous North kite with a camera attached to bring you these aerial photos. If you squint you may be able to see lots of little circular platforms across the summit, each one being the remains of a roundhouse, with over 100 of them across the summit, although they wouldn't all have been lived in at the same time.

So this wasn't just a couple of huts or a lookout post, you've got a full settlement sitting up here. Some of the houses are bigger than others as well, so it's thought not everyone living up here was on the same level.

The main thing you notice from both ground level and also flying high above is the wall edge which runs around the entire enclosure and twin peaks. Thought to have been a few metres thick and a couple of metres high with some timber on top to give it a bit more height.

The whole enclosure covers around 5 to 5.6 hectares (to be honest I have no concept of what that means), but it's a pretty hefty site.

Now you might be wondering who had the time and inclination to lug all that stone and timber up to the top and those people would have been part of a tribe known as the Votadini. They controlled this part of the country before the Romans booled up, covering much of what is now Northumberland and southern Scotland. And from the size of it, this wasn't just a few huts on a hill, this was clearly a big deal.

And it wasn't just the top of the hill either. The slopes and the valley between here and White Law (the next hill over) are full of remains as well, so this whole area would have been busy.

With most hillforts they are usually built for defence from the odd skirmish. Obviously there would have been tension between tribes, and no doubt the odd scrap over land or resources. But there's no clear evidence this place was regularly attacked or destroyed. It's better to think of it as a settlement that could defend itself if needed, rather than somewhere built purely for war.

On the eastern summit there's a burial cairn that dates back thousands of years. So this spot clearly meant something long before anyone decided to throw a massive wall around it.

Looking north and at the bottom of the hill is Ad Gefrin, an Anglo-Saxon royal site. In the 600s, kings of Northumbria had a palace down there, and according to Bede, people were baptised nearby in AD 627. So even centuries later, this same location was still being used as a centre of power.

So if you fancy boasting that you have eaten your Fruity Malt sitting in the largest hillfort in Northumberland (ok maybe that's just me), then strap your walking boots on and clamber up to the top.

Just short of 2km to the top, but a cracking 279m of ascent.

Or if you fancy making a day of it then follow this walk to Yeavering Bell And Newton Tors.