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Open Country

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Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

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Open Country: Old Oswestry Hillfort

Old Oswestry Hillfort

21/04/2016

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, Old Oswestry Hillfort

Helen Mark visits the Iron Age hillfort in Oswestry, Shropshire.

Helen Mark visits the Iron Age hillfort in Oswestry, Shropshire, to discover why it is the 'Stonehenge of the Iron Age' and how plans for housing might affect this landscape.

Helen Mark visits the Iron-Age Hillfort in Oswestry, Shropshire to discover why it's the "Stonehenge of the Iron Age" and how plans for housing might affect the landscape. Dr Rachel Pope tells Helen why the size and scale of the Western entrance ramparts help make the Hillfort one of the most important Iron-Age monuments in England, and why it's a symbol for community and trade rather than defence. Dr George Nash explains how the site was used to train soldiers in trench warfare and mortar practice during World War One. John Waine links this to soldier and poet Wilfred Owen who returned to his home-town of Oswestry for training and may have written 'Storm' in the shadow of the Hillfort. Helen meets Sarah Gibson of the Shropshire Wildlife Trust and goes in search of Yellowhammers and Linnets which nest in the ramparts, and finds out how the Violet Oil Beetle hitches a lift on the backs of bees. Following Shropshire Council's decision to include a piece of land near the Hillfort in their plan for development, Bill Klemperer of Historic England explains how they hope to minimise its impact should an application for housing be made. But for Rachel Pope the Hillfort has so many tales to tell that any erosion to the landscape around it would devalue its setting.

Producer: Toby Field.

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